Standardizing the Final Fantasy XIV release group series

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Hello, this is my first post here in the forums. I am in the process of re-organizing my music collection and wanted to use the MusicBrainz database to do so, while giving back to the community as much as I can.

As I went through it, I stumbled upon the FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack release group series (official portal for this series can be found here) and I’m trying to wrap my head around how the entries were catalogued. As far as I know and researched, all the soundtrack releases followed the same pattern but it seems the release groups on MB greatly differ between each other (e.g. Before Meteor lists a Blu-ray release with Japanese titles and one with English titles, while Heavensward lists a Blu-ray release with Japanese + English titles and a pseudo-release with only English titles).

This led me to think that I could take this as an opportunity to better learn how MB works through a concrete example and maybe contribute some edits where possible, so I came here to hopefully hear some opinions from more experienced users. Following are some notes I put down while looking at MB and the official websites/stores.

Brief explanation of how the OSTs are being released

I’d say that all the entries follow the same pattern: the OST is released in Japan in Blu-ray and digital formats (e.g. on mora and OTOTOY) and at the same time it is also released worldwide in digital format through other platforms (e.g. Apple Music, Spotify, etc.).

The Blu-ray release

Each OST is released in Blu-ray format @24bit/96kHz, sometimes with extra music videos (e.g. in Heavensward). This release also contains the download of the tracks in MP3 format @320kbps, sometimes with extra “secret tracks” (e.g. in A REALM REBORN). The tracklist is Japanese-only on the back cover, while the booklet has the track titles in both Japanese and English, as can be seen here and here. Sometimes, an additional catalog number is present, as can be seen here in the top right corner of the OBI. There are no explicit artist credits for the release as a whole, only for each track (in the booklet).

I’d enter the Blu-ray releases as was done for Release “HEAVENSWARD: FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack” by SQUARE ENIX MUSIC - MusicBrainz , so track titles in both JP/EN, tagged Multi-language and Multi-script[1], credited to SQUARE ENIX MUSIC[2]. I would also add a release for the MP3 tracks as was done for Release “A REALM REBORN: FINAL FANTASY XIV Original Soundtrack” by 祖堅正慶 - MusicBrainz whether extra tracks are present or not.

Optionally, a pseudo-release with only English titles could be added.

The digital releases

Each OST is also released in digital format on stores/platforms such as mora, OTOTOY, Apple Music (iTunes Store), Spotify, etc. This is where things get a bit tricky because:

  • artist credits differ from store to store and even between countries on the same platform (e.g. for Before Meteor, Apple Music JP credits “Various Artists”, mora credits “SQUARE ENIX”, OTOTOY credits “植松 伸夫 and more” on the 16bit/44.1kHz release and “SQUARE ENIX MUSIC” on the 24bit/96kHz release)
  • track titles language differ between countries (non-JP) on the same platform (e.g. Apple Music US has English titles, Apple Music IT has Japanese titles), so I’d say there can’t be a single worldwide release with English titles

Should these be two releases (using a disambiguation comment for “Japanese titles” and “English titles”) with precise lists of countries (e.g. this would become an official release with the list of countries where the English tracklist was released)? If so, how could one go about finding these lists?

Should additional release(s) be added for the 16bit/44.1kHz or other versions (since it has its own store page)?

To which artist(s) should these releases be credited? (I’d just go with SQUARE ENIX MUSIC for consistency, even for OSTs that list Masayoshi Soken unanimously across stores/platforms).

Final notes

These were my main doubts, hope it was a clear enough and somewhat easy to follow explanation. More questions will probably come to me as I start actually working on these.

Thank you in advance to everyone who will put the effort in reading and helping :smiley:

  1. *Pseudo-release should be used for translations or transliterations that do not appear on an actual release

    (taken from Style / Release - MusicBrainz , emphasis mine) ↩︎

  2. Artist credits should generally follow the actual credit used on the release / track, including the join phrases.

    (from Style / Artist Credits - MusicBrainz , emphasis mine) ↩︎

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Then, the original physical release should be Japanese-only.

And we can add a pseudo-release for English titles. Those that only appear inside the booklet, with a dimmer font.

IMO, a Japanese + English bilingual tracklist, if any in MB, should be a pseudo-release.

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The release guidelines say “If the release has tracks listed in multiple languages, the entry with both languages included is considered to be the official release. Entries with only one of the languages on the cover should be set to pseudo-release.”

That said, if the back cover is just JP here, I’d happily use that as the primary tracklist. But if there’s only a bilingual one, that’s what you’re supposed to use rn (I don’t like it either)

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Back cover is just Japanese and in the booklet, Japanese is big and English translation is smaller.
So I think Japanese-only is official, here.
And Japanese+English or English, would be pseudo.

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That makes sense, thank you both. I guess this could be true even in cases such as Release “NieR:Automata Ver1.1a Original Soundtrack” by MONACA - MusicBrainz , which as it can be seen on Discogs has the English titles on the back cover but in a smaller font. They’re not explicitly formatted as a multi-language title (e.g. “パスカル(Ver1.1a) / Pascal (Ver1.1a)”), that’s what I’m trying to say. Another example could be Release “植物電子の本” by 平沢進 - MusicBrainz (Mercari link for image of the back cover).

As for the release artist credit, in the OP I said I would just put SQUARE ENIX MUSIC on every Blu-ray entry because that’s what appears on the OBIs and discs (more precisely, SE before Heavensward and SEM from that release onwards), while more detailed credits are given in the booklets. The NieR release I linked above instead credits it to MONACA (group), which is referenced in the booklet under “Music Compose & Arrangement” (as seen here), while SEM appears on OBI and disc. While I’m still unsure on which criteria to follow, I’d probably lean towards listing all the composers as they appear in the booklet, as SQUARE ENIX MUSIC - MusicBrainz seems to be used rather sparingly.

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