I stumbled onto the Time-Life series for “The Fabulous Fifties” while looking at some releases, and have been working on them for several days now. Generally there are US versions and Europe versions which are close but may differ by any number of songs (and sometimes track order). In at least one case a Europe version was created from freeDB in 2006 with disc2&3 from the Europe version and in 2015 disc1 was added from the US version (I am working on that one).
The question I have is on RG album/master links to allmusic and discogs. Allmusic appears to separate the album link for the two different regions different (at least in this case), discogs only has the one release so no master. Musik-Sammler album link only has the European release.
RG has two US releases and one European release, but the RG links Allmusic and Musik-Sammler are European only.
What should I do, (remember there are differences in the releases)?
Break out the European release into its own RG with a disambiguation of US or Europe?
Edit the links to show whether they are US or European, but leave all in the same RG?
Remove all RG links?
Other ideas?
US and Europe in same RG is the normal way. Not unusual for different tracks to appear on albums in different territories. Especially something like this.
I would pop a disambig on the Releases to note (US Edition) (Europe edition) and some annotation notes in the RG itself.
As to that hybrid US CD1, Euro CD2/3 Release - sounds like that one just needs fixing, split it up as best you can make sense of it. “Add Medium” should help to find and move discs around as required.
It is also not surprising that other databases are just as confused. Something like this is not going to be catalogued by many collectors, making it harder to cross check and fix.
That is more about all of these databases rely on an individual actually noticing the release in the first place. I expect very few people have ever looked at this Release in any of the databases you have named. And even rarer to look at them all at the same time.
I’ve been on similar chases myself. Finding something obscure, then every reference contradicts the next. Each with their own errors.
This kinda stuff just relies on someone who care putting in the effort.
I had a quick look at these, and can see why some may say split RGs discogs style. But I think there is enough common here in the track order to keep them together. They are also stylishly related. Just a few tracks get swapped out that better fit the territory.
The only thing I’d be watching out for is - are these real recordings, or covers?
Time-Life reuses their licenses recordings all over the place, so “real recordings”. I think I am just going to delete the wrong tracks (which will unlink the recordings) and add in the correct tracks. I found the correct freeDB link for disc1 so it will be no worse than what was originally added. I will fix the track times on the existing disc1 recordings to match the freedb entry, they are off by no more than 3 seconds so I see no issue there. I will also look for Time-Life “recordings” to match the replaced tracks since they will get merged at some point by someone.
Sounds like you have this sorted. I expect there will be a bit of an overlap on the US\EUR CD 1, but it is easy enough to copy\paste any recording links over.
And I know what you mean about that “repackage, reuse, recycle” method of those compilations. It is funny seeing that text on “The Golden Age of Pop” CD admitting it is just a reissue with a new name. Which does make the job a little easier.
A few months back I got lost down the rabbit hole of cover compilations and it can be quite stunning as to how often the same CD appears again and again with new names attached to it.
