I’m considering working on MBS-10754 (sorting recording, release and release group collections) for the next schema change, since I know a fair amount of people wanted that. That said, I’m thinking about the details and I’m getting more and more confused about how to make it work in a way that doesn’t confuse the user.
Artist credits have names which can be, unsurprisingly, credited. Meaning, “Artist One” can show as “One, the Artist” on a release. We do not have sort names for these credits, though. As such, the only way to sort by sort names I can see is to entirely ignore credits and sort releases by the main artists’ sort names. Which means a release by “One, The Artist” would still sort under “A” with all the other uncredited “Artist One” releases.
Is this actually something we want? If we do, is it enough to just show the collections as now (even though the sorting by artist might not be obvious based on the displayed artist credit), or should we show the sort name we are using for the artist credit in some way as well?
I am confused. Why would that be under “A” and not “O”?
I thought the idea is just use the Sort Name for an artist and then don’t over think the details.
i.e. if it is “The Artist One” and a sort name is “One, The Artist”. Then that is “O”.
If sometimes they are credited with an alias of “Artist One” or even “The artist previously known as Artist One” or “Symbol”. Then just sort them under “One, Artist” as per their sort order. Then we find all their release together.
If it is “The Artist One and Fellow Performer” with Sort orders of “One, The Artist” and “Performer, Fellow” then you are only using that first credit anyway and it is under “O”.
Can I suggest use real world names in examples instead? Less confusing.
You can’t sort by aliases as they don’t have a sort. As you say. But I expect, like others, if I have an artist who goes by three different aliases then I’d be happy to find all their works grouped together under the name they are usually known by. Ignore the alias and use the main sort order.
There are many sort orders there for the aliases. So if you want to “Sort as credited”, then it is likely that there is an alias to be found with a sort order. If not, there is an easy way for someone to fix it.
But I’d still stick to the earlier comment. I’d be happier to find all my “Lee “Scratch” Perry” under “Perry, Lee “Scratch””. Quicker to code. Quicker to process. And more like how I naturally put my music on the shelf.
That’s basically what I want to make sure, that people are happy to have things sorted all together even if the credits are different Good to know at least you are.
Yes, theoretically we could look at all the aliases and see if they match an artist credit and if they do whether they have a sort name. But that complicates the whole thing even more and makes it more brittle, so at least for a first implementation it seems safer to stick with the main artist sort names.
Making it a user option means someone still has to code it. I am all for sticking to simple non-alias artist sort for v1.0 version. Then see how many people notice alias sort missing.
Good to know at least you are.