When is a Sample or Remix an Artist?


Simple question. Why do the above two singles get listed under Pink Floyd singles?

The main artists here have taken a sample of a track and then used it. So should these not just be “based on” or “sample from” or “remix”?

I want to take the Pink Floyd MBID out of the Release Group and Release titles. These should be credited to JUST Eric Prydz and DJ Russ Harris. They shouldn’t appear under a list of Pink Floyd releases.

The edits I am about to put in will credit these to the artist, but give them an alias that includes their “vs Floyd” text.

If I have understood this all wrong, then please vote no and I’ll remove the edits.

Just think that these guys should be getting proper credit for their own work.

Eric Prydz Edits
DJ Russ Harris edits

Those are edits to correct the Release Groups, Release and Track credits. This will also propagate down to Recording level too. Once these have completed I’ll polish up next week and make sure all the recordings on compilations, etc are consistent as some will have been missed.

Any comments, suggestions, better more correct ways of adding these credits - do let me know.

If I have this all wrong - then I am happy to cancel all the credits. Just seems strange to me to have Pink Floyd taking credit for this guy’s work. :slight_smile:

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I haven’t heard either of these songs, nor is this a genre I’m familiar with, so I can only answer in general.

If these are actually “remixes”, where the DJ hasn’t added anything new, just taken the existing songs and recombined their elements in new ways, then the original artist should definitely be credited along with the DJ. After all, in this case, all of the music you hear is still provided by the band.

If these are original compositions, that simply incorporate samples from the older songs, then I could see crediting the DJ solely. But in that case, I would think he’s more than just a DJ, he would be a composer/performer or whatever.

I suppose there would be a line somewhere where you would switch from one to another. For example, if the DJ ran a drum machine track under a song made up of the older song’s samples, I would probably still credit both of them, since most of the performance is still the original band.

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The Eric Prydz track can be located on YouTube. And the sound is a long way from the Pink Floyd original. New vocals on there too.


It is more like a cover version. A new work based on an original. The puzzle to me is that other times I have seen artists on MB who sample or remix another’s work they aren’t listed under the source material. Now if this was a remix that Pink Floyd paid for / requested / worked on / etc then I’d say it make sense to be a Pink Floyd track.

But this is more a case of - he liked the music, and saw he could do something new with it. They take samples and use them like instruments. They mix and recreate a totally new piece of work.

Go to shops like Amazon and this is found under Eric Prydz.

It is also worth a quick look at the credits already in place and I feel it links back very well to the fact this is “based on” the original Pink Floyd track.

Yeah - I have been thinking about this too much :smiley:

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These are proper credits that should not be removed. “vs.” indicates a collaboration; the current credits, based on cover art and other sources, follow our guidelines on how to credit artists in such cases. In the case of Eric Prydz the credits on the cover use the exact same size font for both. Discogs credits the two releases the same way we do right now*.
The proper way to proceed IMO if you want to get them out of the list with (official) Pink Floyd singles is to give them at release group level the secondary type “DJ-mix” :wink:

*edit: …and wikidata/wikipedia also credit systematically both artists

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This is why I am puzzled. The “vs indicates a collaboration” - but there was no collaboration here. No one from Pink Floyd was involved. This is just Eric Prydz choosing source material.

I would understand it more if both names on the credits were involved.

I thought that “vs.” was kept for when both artists are there in the studio. This is more a case of taking samples and reworking them.

It is easy to drop these edits, which is why I did them in a batch like this. Adjusting them to DJ-Mix seems a good fix to me.

If I swap this to a Secondary Type of DJ-Mix to get it out of the Pink Floyd singles, isn’t that going to put it into the wrong place on Eric Prydz page?

Eric Prydz has sampled a Pink Floyd track and released it as “Proper Education”. He and others then remixed that track.

Pink Floyd never released or remixed it. Which is where my confusion is. The English Language definitions of remix and sample.

Following this logic anyone can add an artist to their own name and then appear under that artist’s singles. Seems weird to me. But then some of the guidelines are weird and I’ll get my head around them.

Any one know where the previous discussion is?

(And don’t worry - I’ll unwind all of this in the next couple of days. Too tired to do it tonight and I don’t want to make errors)

Edit: Hang on - I assume you mean set secondary type to “Remix” and not “DJ-Mix”. Very different skills there.

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I tend to agree with @IvanDobsky, there’s no collaboration at all here, this is a work based on Pink Floyd tracks (on Proper Education, voices, guitar, bass, drums were extracted somehow, and remixed, prolly using 1979 The Wall album). I’d say it’s an heavily edited remix using samples of original tracks, but for sure that’s not a collaboration, not really a cover too.

I’d rather use an alias “Eric Prydz as Eric Prydz VS Pink Floyd”.

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as I said in #musicbrainz, I agree with this assessment, and IvanDobsky’s point here.
These are kinda like “mash-ups but only one track is involved” a completely re-doing of the source material.
In-fact not to unoften Mash-up artists will “do a completely overhaul” type remix on singular tracks - and also name the artists for tracks like “Artist A vs. Artist B” or “Mashupername vs. Some Artist feat. Some Other Artist” (or combine them humorously like “Blursabian” for Blur + Kasabian)
In all these cases the artist is still only the Remixer/Mash-uper

Zas’ idea of “use an alias “Eric Prydz as Eric Prydz VS Pink Floyd”” makes great sense here to me.

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Isn’t this the same case as Elvis vs. JXL? This is currently also credited to both artists even though it wasn’t a collaboration. Some more info about it on wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Little_Less_Conversation#Junkie_XL_/_JXL_version.

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@Zas and @CatQuest thank you for listening to the actual track and giving an opinion. :slight_smile:

This is exactly how I am thinking. And is what the list of edits in the first post started to do at a Release and Release Group level.

Currently those edits are setup to fail due to votes of (2 Yes vs 2 No)

I will leave those in place now a little longer to see how this develops. Glad the discussion is starting to happen.

@culinko interesting example there. But wasn’t the JXL work more official? Hence Elvis getting the credit before JXL? Reading the Wikipedia page it says the track was released on an Elvis Greatest Hits package. Giving it a much more official standing in the Elvis catalogue.

Edit: Any chance I could ask you guys @Zas and @CatQuest to put in some votes? You understand how the music is created. Links on the first post take you to a filtered search where some of your votes would help this debate.

Is this one of the same brand ? I didn’t listen yet.

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Same guy, but I’ve not looked close at the Churves one. I am a Pink Floyd fan first, but do enjoy a lot of remixed and dance music. So I don’t know if there is any collaboration on there.

The tracks I picked at the top use samples of Pink Floyd music. There is no band involvement. Not really a “versus” situation.

The Prodigy is on my shelf next to Pink Floyd. And none of their tracks made from samples appear as “singles” of the band they sampled the music from. They just credit their sources. They don’t claim to be their source.

I took the time to look at this and I agree with @chabreyflint opinion. I also understand the confusion, as even an ISRC search tends to show 50/50 credits for Eric Prydz alone and sometimes with Pink Floyd.

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Bringing this thread back to life as yesterday a vote reverted this edit. I want the other people in this discussion to be able to take part so I have reopened the edit to allow more time this time for eyes to see the changes.

The ten hours that edit was open was not enough for people to see what I believe is an incorrect credit.

Eric created this track and called himself “Eric Prydz vs Floyd” and at no stage were Pink Floyd in the studio. the rest of the discussion is in the thread above. :slight_smile:

https://musicbrainz.org/edit/65356345 <— Previous week long discussion
https://musicbrainz.org/edit/65398218 <— Yesterday’s change passed in 10 hours without discussion

https://musicbrainz.org/edit/65398218 <— New edit - please add your votes here

I don’t really agree with taking PF out of the credit, FWIW. This is a commercially produced track, where I assume PF had to give their consent for it, and it’s perfectly possible that the conditions they gave for consent were “we should be credited at the same level as the DJ”. Plus, what we follow in MB for credits is not some evaluation of the facts, it’s, well, credits, and this is clearly credited to Pink Floyd. If we had some proof that this was unapproved by PF, or that they don’t like the credit being there, I’d understand the change.

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When other tracks get sampled I rarely see the artist in the title. (See above - had this discussion six months ago :grin:)

Yes - samples do require permission, but then that appears as a writing credit in the small print on the back.

What I don’t understand is why this now appears as an official Pink Floyd single on Pink Floyd’s page. The MB database is now saying this is a Pink Floyd creation if you ask for the Pink Floyd singles.

If Floyd should be in the title, then how do we get the database to realise it should not be displaying it as an official Pink Floyd release?

I’ll dig around more on this one again over the weekend. I don’t believe that any of the ex-members of Pink Floyd had anything to do with this.

My aim is to get the thread opened for discussion under more eyes for the whole seven days of a normal edit instead of yesterday’s fast change. The last time we had more eyes on this and more opinions.

This should link to edit #61161300, seems you have linked your new edit twice instead:

I agree with that and therefore the release credit should stay as it is now, but there’s no harm in changing the recording credit to include Pink Floyd. Yesterday’s change https://musicbrainz.org/edit/65356345 had no effect on the list of Pink Floyd singles.

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Surely this is only true to a point, though. If I were to release a bunch of my own home recordings and claim it to be a Pink Floyd bootleg, I would hope MB would follow the facts and not list it under Pink Floyd.

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@kellnerd - yeah - I spotted that the single has not yet been edited like last time. The arguments here will soon lead to someone editing the release again. It just seems illogical to me that the Release gets edited, but you watch… after this debate settles someone will copy the arguments across.

If I interrogate the database and ask for “Pink Floyd” Recordings, this Eric Prydz track is now credited as a Pink Floyd recording. Yet they are not involved. They have only been sampled.

@highstrung - you have exactly understood my concern. If I release a single and call my band “Floyd vs Adele vs Prince” and include a few samples from each of those artists then why should my single now appear under their list of recordings?

All seems a strange puzzle to me.

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