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.
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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.”)
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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.
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.
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That sounds like a pure naming / translation thing. So the type probably should be named “film score”.
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The last few months I’ve been working through all the film score composers from A to E (so far) I guess I’ve added more than 50,000 works as a “soundtrack” that I believe were part of a soundtrack and were composed as such. What other meaning should the classification as “soundtrack work” have? Soundtracks are often composed of works composed especially for the soundtrack and third-party works (songs) by prominent artists. This is where I see the necessary differentiation, which of course should not be classified as a “soundtrack”. I fully agree with @outsidecontext here. Since I also plan to work through the film score composers up to Z: Should I create the works that are still to be created as a soundtrack, neutral or as a song???
Per the Style guidelines and the Style Leader, you should be creating Works with no type whatsoever. If you disagree with this, you can join the long line of people who want change.
If it is the prevailing opinion at the moment, I will create the works without type. It’s a real shame that the information that this work was composed especially for a soundtrack is lost. Please let me know if it ever changes.
Renaming the type is certainly what I think is best, but, as “soundtrack” is currently being applied to music for films, TV, games, etc., “film” might be too limiting. “Media score,” perhaps? Otherwise, we’d need more types (film score, TV score, game score, etc.)
I wouldn’t say it’s the prevailing opinion, at least not yet. At the moment, it’s not much more than an idea that I’m putting forward. I’m certainly not trying to lose that information. I just think “soundtrack” is not an accurate name for the type.
Soundtracks are an important Work type as many of us want to know when music was used in a film. I’ve generally tried to followed the pattern @yindesu mentions where there is ONE soundtrack Work per film, and every Work written for that film is the “Part of” that soundtrack Work.
This means one Soundtrack Release of 18 tracks is one Soundtrack Work, and 18 separate works created to line up to the Tracks on the Cd. All “part of” that main work.
I don’t think we need to rename this type as it will cause more confusion that way. Generally you buy a “Soundtrack CD”, so it fits neatly that you then have a “Soundtrack Work” that would align to the release.
I also think a conversation about Works in a thread that started about Release Groups is getting confusing.
In this case I actually would be for keeping the name “soundtrack” for the work. This is commonly understood and fits for all the cases.
I really think “John Williams wrote the soundtrack for Star Wars” is commonly understood. And it is also how essentially all the other work types are being used.
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I don’t think it does. Consider the Alex North music for 2001. The work was created with the intent of being recorded for the soundtrack of the movie, but it was not used for that purpose. So now you have a work that, by your logic, is a soundtrack, but no recording of that work will ever be a soundtrack.
I think the use of the word “soundtrack” in relation to works is exactly what’s causing the confusion that @TheBookkeeper alluded to.
But there is a soundtrack CD for, say, the movie “Stand By Me,” but there wouldn’t be a soundtrack work for it.
Yes, I didn’t anticipate it being a full-blown conversation on its own. Maybe a moderator can break it out to a separate thread.
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I think in a case like this, it does make sense to create a work for the unused soundtrack, as long as it’s disambiguated and annotated. I’ve actually created a soundtrack work for a similar case; the game Fighting is Magic, which was later totally reworked into Them’s Fightin’ Herds
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That’s just a colloquial shorthand, but that doesn’t mean it’s correct. I don’t believe the music industry uses “soundtrack” that way, and I don’t think MB should, either.
I’ve seen a few interviews with John Williams, and he never speaks about writing a “soundtrack.” He writes scores. He calls it “writing the score,” or “film music.” He almost never uses the word “soundtrack,” unless he’s talking about the recording. I think applying the word “soundtrack” to the composed music, rather than the recorded music, is not consistent with the general meaning of the word “soundtrack.”
Wikipedia:
A soundtrack is recorded sound accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film, video, or television presentation; or the physical area of a film that contains the synchronised recorded sound.
Cutting Room Music (a partnership in the business of composing scores):
We generally associate the term “soundtrack” with the collection of music that is released along with a feature film. The thing is, a commercially released soundtrack album can be anything the studio wants it to be: it could be only the original score, only the licensed songs, or a combination of score and excerpts of dialogue or remixes and tribute versions of the music in the film.
I think, the closer you get to people in the industry, the difference gets more defined, and it becomes clear that they don’t apply to word “soundtrack” to the score. MB should not be muddying that distinction.
Anyway, that’s my position. I don’t object to having some way to identify a work as being written or intended for a movie (or other medium). I just think “soundtrack” is the wrong word. I’ve already repeated myself, and I expect further dialog would just be more repetitive, so I’ll leave it at this, unless something compelling comes up.
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That is just due to the decision that we are not allowed to mark any music that already exists as a soundtrack. Slightly different conversation. I look at a film like The Breakfast Club in a similar way. Even the track that was written for the film is not allowed to be noted as such due to it being a chart track. I don’t want to go down that tangent in this conversation though as I can adjust my own types on local media
But then many of us also do see where the music industry uses it in that way. Example go look at the old charts and there is a Soundtrack Chart. Not a Score chart.
We all use language differently. There is no right and wrong.
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If you’re talking about charts like the Billboard charts, the Soundtrack chart shows the sales/popularity of the soundtrack recordings, not the scores, so that’s entirely consistent with my point.
God help us if that were true. 
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In the UK I walk into a record store and go to the section titled Soundtracks and look at CDs with Soundtrack written on them. I then buy that CD and it will hold music that is part of a Soundtrack of a film. That purchase then enters the Soundtrack charts. The chart is not for a single Recording, it is the whole Release.
The various tracks on the CD are from Works which are all making up that Soundtrack. Which is what I already broke down above seems quite sensible what MB are doing now by linking a Soundtrack to that Release that then has parts made up of Works.
I think it is quite clear in this thread that we all use language in a different way.
Am now off away to RealWorld™ things and will leave the discussion to others. On the way I’ll put the radio on so I can hear the scores in the football matches being played tonight 
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I think sticking with the “proper” use for terms might cause some confusion with those not in the music industry, see also the confusion around the “Song” work type
I would opt to raise their level of education on the subject, rather than (inaccurately) dumbing down the facts to accommodate them.
The soundtrack type should not be applied to each part work, just to the parent work for the concept of the soundtrack / score. This is not just an opinion, but a style guideline for years now (Style / Work - MusicBrainz), and I would really have hoped that someone planning to make fifty thousand edits for works would at least read the work guidelines before starting 
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It’s not lost if they are parts of a soundtrack work for the full score, in the same way it’s not lost that movements of a symphony were composed for a symphony just because they themselves don’t have the “symphony” type.
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