This is something I agree with. But for the same tracks to not be a compilation if listed under Various Artists confuses me and does not make sense. Red Hot describe their releases as Compilation Albums, so I don’t understand why MusicBrainz would now go against that artist’s intent and the general meaning of Compilation.
This is again something I agree with. This is an extreme redefinition and I don’t get why MusicBrainz would follow this route for what many others would consider a compilation.
I’m not sure.
I don’t think this clarification will lead to any changes to my VA albums. I checked briefly, and all VA compilations of newly recorded music are not categorized as secondary type compilation. With “Neel,” I think I would have categorized it as a compilation. However, it shouldn’t make a difference whether the compilation was made by the label or a curator.
“Red Hot” is a tribute album, consisting of newly recorded material, and should not be a compilation anyway.
Since implementing two different release group types that mean compilation (reused tracks) and compilation (new tracks) is too much work and likely confusing, it’s a workaround. Compilation on an artist has three meanings, but compilation for various artists only has two.
Release of reused tracks centered around album artist(s). (doesn’t apply to various artists)
Release of reused tracks by other artists prominently credited to album artist(s) in the role of compiler/curator.
Release of new tracks by other artists prominently credited to album artist(s) in the role of compiler/curator.
For various artists, only equivalents of 2–3 exist. Since we’re already dealing with three possible types of clearly different releases for non-VA releases, the definitions are different from when there’s just two, and there’s a clear distinction for it. There’s no downsides to leaving VA releases with new tracks as non-compilations in terms of organization, but there is a balancing if the release is credited to a compiler. Thus, for definition 3 you have two choices:
Make the release show up in the album artist(s) main discography so that it’s easier to find when browsing VA releases that feature a particular artist.
Make the release show up in the album artist(s) compilation discography so that it’s easier to separate from the releases that feature the album artist(s) in another role.
I think 2 is the option that is more convenient, since people mostly browse artist’s main discographies, rather than the VA compilation. Yes, this results in a different definition depending if the album artist is set to VA, but there’s a consistent (imo) rationale for it.
Some of them are not tribute albums to a particular artist. My personal opinion is that they shouldn’t be set to a compilation, but I would have done so when adding it based on what I interpreted the guideline to be. I would also have set any VA tribute album to that, and only excluded ones by one group, since “various artist song collection” feels like a very, very inclusive definition.
I see releases of this kind more often than not added with compilation as the release type.
Here’s two examples of critically acclaimed albums on several top of decade lists and that have Wikipedia articles that primarily or exclusively consists of new tracks. I’m not cherry-picking here, I believe that I’ve tried to find the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful examples to bring forth to why this is a change, not a clarification.
“Mono No Aware” is a compilation of unreleased tracks, but not necessarily new tracks. I think it should be a compilation. Artificial Intelligence probably not, especially with the clarification. There will always be grey areas.