Still learning, I have a few questions

I have a few questions about some issues I have seen over the past few days. I was hoping someone could enlighten me.

  1. If music contains samples how do we mark that?
    I ran into a rap album that sampled Jimi Hendrix. The album cover credits him as “featuring” for the track, but he has been dead for a few decades. It would be nice to know how it should be listed.

  2. Classical Music. If John Smith records an old work from Mozart, do we list the artist as Mozart?
    Specifically on this release: https://musicbrainz.org/release-group/e6373d54-bfea-4419-a5ae-20332f293f08
    I mean, other than writing the pieces, Mozart didn’t really have anything to do with it. But I don’t mess with Classical music entries too often to be familiar with how they work.

  3. Artist names. I’ve asked variations of this before, but every time I think I have it, a new situation pops up. What name are we to be using for their MB entry? Specifically, here https://musicbrainz.org/edit/48850328
    In the past, I have seen what I consider “senior” editors (guys I try to learn from) change artist names stating that it is to match a Wikipedia entry. But, here I am being told about artist intent, which my history with the WP article in question has more to do with fan names than artist intent (as seen in my comments). Not trying to get votes, just trying to learn.

  4. Not every artist (or individual member of a band) has a media frenzy with 1,000,000+ search hits. And sometimes bands that are past their prime have personnel changes that don’t really get advertised, or maybe they are temporary, or a “touring” member. How many sources do we require?
    Reason being, an artist’s WP article says that he was a member of a band. But doing a search, I only found one news article saying he was in the band. Plenty of wiki/wordpress/forum type of hits, and plenty of hits that copy the WP text, but only one hit from a “reliable 3rd party” source with original text.
    I mean, one hit is more than many local artists get, and we are ok with including them. So, I was just wondering for more “mainstream” bands, even if the heyday is over, what does it take to be included as a member on their list.

I primarily edit classical, so I can answer #2: Classical has it’s own guidelines (see https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Style/Classical) and yes, Mozart is indeed supposed to be listed as the track artist. The recording artist (which is separate, and you can see it displayed if you click on one of the recordings, e.g., https://musicbrainz.org/recording/179e7d9e-136b-4a37-9e9a-95abdb79d7ab) is the performers. That release seems to be done correctly.

Also, #4 I don’t think we have any formal requirement. My feeling is that there should be enough that you have reason to believe it’s true, and that should consider things like how popular a band is. Does a wildly popular band have a member that is only mentioned by a single source, and everyone else failed to mention? Probably not. But when it comes to local or little-known groups—it’s hardly surprising that only one site knows about them. I think it’d only come down to comparing sources, digging back to primary/authoritative sources, etc. if there is a disagreement. (Also, keep in mind “once played a gig with them” does not imply “is a member”.)

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There is a Recording-Recording “samples” relationship you can use to link the recording containing the sample to the recording using the sample.

Situations like these have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. In the case you linked, there is evidence to suggest that the artist uses her given name as a stage name. Even Wikipedia acknowledges this, by pointing out the fact she uses a stage name.

As long as there’s some piece of evidence to suggest someone is a member of a band, that to me is enough to link that artist to the band. If that member is listed as a touring member, I’d use a “support” type relationship, e.g. “supporting musician”, “supporting instrument” or “supporting vocals” (if that member’s instrument/vocal role is known).

We’d want as many as possible, but we don’t really require more than one + your common sense (if it’s a dodgy blog that looks like it might be wrong, you might want to not use it as a source - but a good blog about a local scene can be a fantastic source!).

One thing I kinda envy about Wikidata is that every single fact has its own place to put sources in. Not everything is properly sourced, but when something is it’s very easy to see and check :slight_smile: I wish we had something like that rather than having to fish in edit notes for a clue.

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So, I should remove the “featuring Jimi Hendrix” portion from the artist listing even though that is how it is listed on the album cover?

I think part of the problem (for this specific case) is the fact that I was involved with the WP discussions with her and some of her musical cohorts. We determined that her name included the last name. It was only the fan base that insisted that we one-name her. Which we determined, as mentioned in the comment section, is the same as fans referring to Mary J or Gaga when referring to Mary J Blige or Lady Gaga.

But, outside of this case, you’re saying to continue doing what I’m doing because there is no real set standard.

What we want is most current or main artistic name, the one used on releases.
The other names (legal, name, full name, nickname, search hint, …) are aliases.

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Which is why I made sure to mention that there are numerous hits, but when you exclude the unreliable sites and the news articles that use the exact same wording as the WP article - there is only one.

Not everyone seeks fame, some just want to play music.

Not if it’s listed on the cover (front or back).