What is a "Soundtrack"

I’ve taken a stab at the definition of “Soundtrack” on the Release Group/Type page. Please have a look:

Release Group/Type - MusicBrainz Wiki

1 Like

Keep in mind, what I said was just my opinion. I hope to have feedback on my proposed edit on the wiki.

However, based on what I said, if my edit is accepted, the Wakanda EP would not be considered a soundtrack.

Maybe change your link to a view link, instead of edit link, which is quite of worrying for the page. :slight_smile:

Hmm, my edits don’t even seem to be there anymore.

Okay, figured out what I did wrong. My edit is there now, and I fixed the link so it’s not an “edit” link.

1 Like

Was there ever a consensus on this? I think parts of a soundtrack not being counted as soundtrack does make sense, and should be mentioned in the wiki.

1 Like

Not that I’ve seen. I proposed a documentation revision, but it didn’t get much attention. Since your post reminded me of it, I just added a revised proposal based on feedback. Hopefully more opinions will surface.

2 Likes

The whole confusion was caused by the work type guidelines about Soundtracks. It has nothing to do with the RG secondary type Soundtrack. The style leader said if a single is taken from a soundtrack, it should have the Soundtrack secondary type, but the work type for that single is just a song, not a soundtrack.

4 Likes

Several editors do not seem to want to acknowledge this guidance in Edit #106437396 - MusicBrainz

Hence my attempt to get a conversation going to develop a clearer definition.

Would be interesting to read what was written…as in please link/quote

2 Likes

That doesn’t seem to square with what he said earlier in this thread:

1 Like

I think you may be missing what @wtfislibrious said in the line before that. He says that reosarevok only said something about works and not about release groups.

Notice the suggestions of Song or Sonata as alternatives to Soundtrack. These are work types, just like soundtrack is also a work type. Therefor he said nothing about release group secondary types.

Still it’s a fair discussion to have. If a song (work) is not a soundtrack (work-type), because it’s only part of a soundtrack, not the entire thing. Then perhaps a single (release type) would also not be a soundtrack (RG secondary type) by the same logic, because the single is only part of the soundtrack not the whole thing.

Perhaps the difference is that in the case of RGs it’s only a secondary type? It doesn’t call the entire thing a soundtrack, it is calling it a single first, soundtrack second. Still I’m not entirely convinced by this logic, because it’s still only part of a soundtrack, not the whole thing. But perhaps I’m missing something.

2 Likes

Like @dpr , I’d be interested in seeing where the style leader said what @wtfislibrious attributed to him. I haven’t found it.

If that is what was said, it only makes sense in the context of a musical score, like a Star Wars or Harry Potter album. It doesn’t make sense in the case of soundtrack albums that comprise several pop tunes, unless they were all written for the movie (Grease comes to mind).

2 Likes

I’m forming the opinion that it’s a mistake to call a work a soundtrack. A “soundtrack” is literally “recorded music.” A work is a composition. It might be the basis for a soundtrack, but it isn’t the soundtrack. That’s for the recorded instance of the work that accompanies the movie.

And look at the confusion it’s causing. :woozy_face:

1 Like

Have you seen what a soundtrack-type of work looks like? The work in itself is a soundtrack, every song that is part of the soundtrack is a song. There’s not much confusion to be made here.

3 Likes

There is certainly confusion - I personally removed the “Soundtrack” work type from more than half of all Soundtrack-type Works ever created in MusicBrainz in early 2022 because the usage violated style guidelines. And judging by this graph, someone’s going to need to do it again.

And parts of a soundtrack should not be ordered like in your linked example.

2 Likes

The work is a composition. Notes on paper. A score. The soundtrack is the recorded performance of that work – the music that accompanies a movie. Applying the word to the composition is only causing confusion.

1 Like

If the composition was done with the purpose of creating the soundtrack then the work should be classified as this. Otherwise you can apply the same logic to all other work types as well (“this work is not a song, it is just a composition. It is a song if it gets sung.”)

4 Likes

I disagree. A song has always been a song, and it has always referred to the written composition, whether it was sung or not. The term “soundtrack” originated as a reference to the “track” on actual film that carried the recorded sound that accompanied the movie. It has never really meant anything else, and we shouldn’t be muddying the waters by misapplying the word.

image

John Williams didn’t write the soundtrack to Star Wars – he wrote the musical score that was recorded for the soundtrack.

Alex North wrote a musical score with the purpose of creating the soundtrack for the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey,” but it was never used in the movie. So it’s a musical score intended for a movie, but it’s not a soundtrack.

2 Likes

That sounds like a pure naming / translation thing. So the type probably should be named “film score”.

2 Likes