When is Various Artists NOT a compilation?

[eloise_freya]

Now, most of the time a release credited to Various Artists is a also a compilation… but should it always be?

A couple of examples.

Recently, Help(2) was released by WarChild records - this is a new release of (predominantly if not entirely) new recordings. This is identified as being a compilation, but as these are all new recordings, surely it shouldn’t be?

Releases of a concert or other live performance which involves multiple artists. Individual tracks will be credited to individual artists, so the overall release will come under “Various Artists”, but again, surely this should not be considered a compilation if all (or most) recordings come from the same event? An example of this is Release group “This is Ska!” by Various Artists - MusicBrainz - single event but multiple artists.

[tigerman325]

STYLE-2563: Should VA albums of new music be compilations?

Some of them are not tribute albums to a particular artist. My personal opinion is that they shouldn’t be set to a compilation, but I would have done so when adding it based on what I interpreted the guideline to be. I would also have set any VA tribute album to that, and only excluded ones by one group, since “various artist song collection” feels like a very, very inclusive definition. I see releases of this kind more often than not added with compilation as the release type. Here’s two…

[ernstlx]

@eloise_freya

Now, most of the time a release credited to Various Artists is a also a compilation… but should it always be?

Certainly not always.

Help(2) is more “a split release containing new music by several artists” and thus not a compilation. Although the contributions of the artists are not always originally released on this album, they were not released on another album and singles taken from it are mostly marketed as part of this album.

This Is Ska! is a live album. IMO, it is a reissue of the original video and the soundtrack release with some additional tracks. Since the other releases available on Discogs would be in the same release group, I would definitely not classify it as a compilation.