Following some conversation on the unofficial discord, I think the current style guidelines are worth rediscussing for the case of mashups.
Current style guidelines for mashup (Style / Specific types of releases / Remixes and mashups - MusicBrainz) explain that mashups should be credited as:
Artist: the mashup creator
Title: Not really any info on how to credit it. Other than putting the artists of the tracks mashuped as (Artist A vs. Artist B)
Also, the Remixer relationship is apparently also used to credit the mashup creator.
Adjusted guidelines
The current style guidelines for Mashup is very lacking, so Iām proposing a clearer rule, which is based on existing ones and takes into account different ways Iāve seen mashups credited.
Always keep the original credits for the Title field (keep slashes, vs. or similar);
If Artists are in the original credits (Artist A - Track A / Artist B - Track B or Artist A - Track A vs. Artist B - Track B), move them out to the Artist field and keep the original separator (/, vs., or similar);
If Artists are not in the original credits, use the mashup artist in the Artist field;
Use the Remixer relationship to denote who the mashup artist is;
Use the Mashup of relationship to link to the original recordings.
Works also need to be linked; my guess is that in this case they should be as āpartialā or āacapellaā depending on the context.
I do think actually adding the whole vs. thing in the recording title feels cumbersome, and can just be replaced by both the relationships and a disambiguation saying ā[mashup artist] mashupā or similar.
Examples
Here are some examples of how Iāve seen mashups be credited, and how they would look like in the database:
No Mana - Toys of Violence / Shiny Toy Guns - Le Disko, mashup by No Mana
Not sure I have examples. I have limited knowledge about more popular music and Iām not even sure thereās proper mashups of songs like these. Iāll try to look for some.
there has been little discussion about mashup works in the past, but I believe the general rule has been mashups get a new work, especially with mashups more complicated than just [song 1] vs [song 2] (also for lyrics, lyric languages, and such)
(opinion time), I think these new works should be linked to the original works for the tracks, perhaps with based on or quotes music/lyrics, depending on context. Iāve done this in a couple of occasions with mashups with classical pieces, since itās nearly impossible to find the specific recording for these (I did look for quite a bit tho)
hereās a couple more popular artists mashed up:
I do agree that there is room for improvement in the mashup space, thereās currently three recordings for Rock of Ages, each with a different style for the vs text (vs & vs. & /)
one point I will make, I think (when possible), the mashup artist should still be credited as the recording artist. whether theyāre listed as the track artist, I donāt feel as strongly on, but at least the recording artist should be the mashupper
Do your proposed changes apply to releases, tracks, or recordings (or two of those, or all three)?
My (unfounded) hunch is that most mashups are created by third parties, not by one of the artists whose music is being mashed up. Could you provide more examples of how third-party mashups would be entered, ideally both ones that involved permission from one of the original artists and ones that didnāt?
Iād warn against deciding whom to credit based on how the mashup artist (or somebody else who uploaded the song) entered the credits online. The text can often be inconsistent across different sources, and itās unexpected to me that a mashup would be credited to different entities in MusicBrainz (i.e. to the original artists vs. to the mashup artist) depending on what the mashup artist happened to type into Bandcamp or YouTube.
I think the main difference is the artist credit and disambiguations on recordings. taking this example:
the recording would be credited thusly under the current guidance:
Title: Toys of Violence / Le Disko (No Mana vs. Shiny Toy Guns)
Artist: No Mana
Recording disambiguation: part of āA/V Set @ Gravity 2021ā DJāmix
Relationships: (same as the above)
apart from that, it looks to be very much the same as the current guidance, just codifying general practices and guidelining relationships. I donāt think adding [artist] mashup to the disambiguation really adds much over the current practice of simply only having the mashup artist in the artist field, and if relationships are properly added to the recording, we do get the original artists credited too
that said, I really donāt mind leaving the vs text off of the recording titleā¦ honestly I usually donāt add that myself (tho I do a lot of work on mashups) (I have been adding them slowly, just prioritizing adding new items in general)
one thing I donāt quite know my opinion on, whether this should also apply to the tracklists of mashup releasesā¦ I typically follow whatever track title is given (i.e. leaving off the vs text if not included), perhaps we could do the same with the artist field? so for the example above, the artist credit on the tracklist would be No Mana / Shiny Toy Guns? I might be open to that as a changeā¦ I donāt know how this might apply to a mashup release like Schnipseljagd Vol.12 (MB), whether that counts as crediting the original artists or notā¦ this style seems to be more prevalent on older mashup releases (2000s ā early 2010s), and newer mashup artists often leave off the vs credits on their releases (in my experience, that is)
edit: I feel like a lot of this might more belong on a documentation page rather than the style guidelines? I think the style guidelines are mostly to clarify and standardize on controversial and unclear areas of metadata (tho correct me if Iām wrong, @reosarevok)
one thing I would like to add is the use of ordering mashup relationships. Iāve always figured that means ordering by appearance, in fact I just edited Rock of Ages to reflect this
afaik thatās been common practice on āmashup releasesā since a while now, e.g. https://bootiemashup.com/ and similar. If the release does not have the artists in the trackname
Further the āalways put artists in the tracknameā was a guideline back in the days of yonder, when even before NGS too, so itās been relaxed superiorily, itās not longer mandatory, just heavily encouraged (unless the original tracks are linked in which case idgaf myself either)
Not always a given. My first example was made by the same artist as one of the tracks.
The issue with that, is that you are losing the original information: the original track credit by the artist is No Mana - Toys of Violence / Shiny Toy Guns - Le Disko.
Another issue I have is the unclear explanation of the difference between track and recording crediting.
I guess that would need clarification, so in the example of No Mana - Toys of Violence / Shiny Toy Guns - Le Disko (this is the original way it is credited, in the release), would this make more sense?
Recording
Title: Toys of Violence / Le Disko (No Mana vs. Shiny Toy Guns) ā uses the same separator as the original credit, but moves the original track artists to the title, with the vs. separator.
Artist: No Mana ā credits the mashup artist
+ add relationships
Track
Title: Toys of Violence / Le Disko ā Uses the same separator as the original credit
Artist: No Mana / Shiny Toy Guns ā Follows the original credit?
I think the main issue is not keeping the original crediting in the track (NOT the recording, as it makes sense to normalize).
Perhaps, but I couldnāt really find a clear guideline whichā¦ made sense, for a lot of examples I wanted to cleanup.
Overall Iām just trying to find how to properly tag everything - Iāve had very conflicting info from multiple people, different pages in the doc. Maybe what Iāve proposed in this message is actually whatās supposed to be done?
yeah, I know Bootie and Mash Up Your Bootz (and a lot of their artists) use vs text, but the only ānewā mashup artists I know that uses vs text somewhat consistently are Triple-Q and Oneboredjeu (there might be others tho, even others I listen to, lol)
one thing I do want to mention, if we do start adding the original artist credits to the tracks, that does mean theyāll start appearing on some of the original artistsā pages (tho not the main page, unless theyāre in the release group credit). I donāt personally have an issue with that, but I feel like thereās some editors who might?
I do agree that adding the original artists might be problematic for some.
I think a priority needs to be chosen: keep the original formatting in the release, or harmonize things through putting vs. in the title?
Iād put a hand up on this one. I donāt know many of the examples here, but recognised the Beatles and Zeppelin ones you added. I agree that a mashup of an artist like the Beatles should not appear in the Beatles discography on their page.
The creator of the music is the Masher-Upper. So their name should be on the single. Their creation then uses multiple sources. Just like shown in @UltimateRiffās examples.
In some level, a mash-up is like using a sample. Just a lot more of a sample.
I can see the logic of wanting to tag the track like the Masher-Upper credited it, but this should not leech into the source materialās discographies.