[STYLE-471] "Cancelled" release status - MetaBrainz JIRA was created back in 2015, but the ongoing coronavirus crisis has created a situation for which I believe it needs to be revived. At least two new albums scheduled to be released this year have been delayed due to the crisis, and at least one was available for preorder before it was delayed. I’m talking specifically about this album:
https://musicbrainz.org/release/9c72c33e-7919-4992-a5ec-9e4337417c67
The way situations like these have been dealt with in the past is the release date just gets updated when the album is eventually released; this is not possible in this case. Jon Bon Jovi has written a new song inspired by the COVID-19 crisis, and he stated in a recent interview he wants to include it on the album’s eventual release, so the album as it was originally offered has effectively been cancelled. At present, we do not have a “cancelled” release status, so this release will either have to remain stuck as “official” or its status removed altogether.
I know it seems silly/redundant of me to make a thread about this, but this is not the first time an issue like this has come up. I primarily want to drum up support for the aforementioned JIRA ticket, but I would also like to know some further suggestions/ideas about cases like these.
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Seems a sensible idea. If anything a “cancelled” release is more notable for the change.
These have sneaked out of studios in the past before official release dates. Someone from the studio will have a “promo” type copy they had put together.
It has happened to Radiohead more than once. In those cases they became “bootlegs”. Whereas these “cancelled” releases are more likely to stay invisible but notable. If one of these surfaced in future years it would be very valuable to a collector.
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Offered?
If I understand, it was never released, was it?
If never released, we just don’t create any entries.
If it was released as a promo, we will only have the promo.
Maybe I imagine it too simple, but why not adding a Disambiguation “canceled release”, remove the release date and write the whole story to an Annotation?
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I feel like this is the most reasonable way of handling things, since “cancelled” can mean a lot of things. In this specific case the release will probably still happen at some later point, but it could also be that an artist announces a release, but then decides against actually releasing it entirely.
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Something that was sold by the artist at events can’t be cancelled, can it?
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Maybe, but not in the case you’re describing.
One case where this would be applicable is “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “I Can’t Watch This” single: copies were pressed, radio promo copies had been shipped out, but the single’s commercial release was cancelled at the eleventh hour for unknown reasons. Someone saved a box of these singles from destruction and brought them to Weird Al, who sold them at his shows for a time.
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