Why have classic track artist fields?

I’m not sure if you’re just arguing absurd things for the sake of it, but it’s trivial to disprove that — a quick check of the Naxos web site HANSON, H.: Symphonies (Complete), Vol. 5 - Sympho.. - 8.559704 | Discover more releases from Naxos makes it clear that they don’t consider Howard Hanson part of the title. Note how they picked a different way to credit him (“HANSON, H.”) and inserted a series name in the middle. That’s not how you treat a title.

(And they do give per-work variations in performers; it’s on the back cover or the Naxos website.)

Last, actually. I checked 10 random classical release from my collection, and 9 of the 10 have the conductor last on both the front cover and the back or inside the booklet (wherever the detailed list is); the one exception is Release “The Complete Symphonies” by Bruckner; Staatskapelle Dresden, Eugen Jochum - Cover art - MusicBrainz which has the conductor first on the cover, but not the booklet.

On the cover, we preserve that order — but for the tracklist, not sure it really matters much (and it’s often not really determinable with how its given in the booklet). But we already have ordered relationships, so sure, why not?

You already can. We happily accept edits that make the database better — in this case including a release that isn’t already present — even if the data isn’t complete. You can even add it without a tracklist (which if you’re only looking at the cover is what you’ll get).

If it were all generated from the ARs, you woudn’t have to go back and fix recording artist (etc.)

That isn’t something you have to do, it’s something you can do, if you want, once you’ve got the initial entry in (and thus have a release to point to, somewhere to upload cover art, etc.)

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I was being serious but my point was that you were incorrect to say

I thought that second screenshot was the back cover, and my point was that just because the composer was on the back cover above the track listing it doesn’t mean that only he is the only person credited at track level.

But now I realize you seemed to have totally contradicted your own argument, that second screenshot was not the back cover, and if you view the back cover (on the cover arts tab, cant see how to get a link) you see that the performers are credited at work level.

So the argument that only the composer is credited makes no sense to me.

We can argue about whether composer or not is part of title, but it is not clear cut. Consider MusicBrainz own style guidelines

A list of works by different composers

For every work, add the composer(s) as credited. Separate the composer(s) from the work with a colon.

If the title has several works by the same composer(s) in a row, add the composer(s) to the first one only.

So if a release has multiple composers listed we include them in the title, if only one composer we don’t. This rule is quite arbitary really, it would make more sense to me if the composer was added in both cases, reosarevok why dont we add in all cases ?

Again I know this, perhaps I should have said I would like to be able to usefully add a release using just add release. Now someone will probably say what is useful for Person A is not useful for Person B, or that I should being add all the relationships for Rock/Pop. But the basic point is that just using Add Release you can add a Pop/Rock release that is sufficiently useful for the masses, but not for Classical.

It’s not arbitrary at all. If the title is “Violin Concerto no. 1 / Violin Concerto no. 2” and the release is by one composer, there’s no need for more info - both are concertos by that composer. But if there’s two composers, then the name is added to specify that it is Composer 1’s no. 1 and Composer 2’s no. 2 (and not the other way around).

It could be made so it only was added if there was a risk of confusion, but since that requires knowing the works of all composers present, it’s easier this way.

Hmm, maybe inconsistent is the right word. Ok I understand the rule, so yes the rules are clear for when you do or do not add composer to title. What I mean is that your rules means that sometimes we add composers to title and sometimes we don’t, it seems more sensible to me to always add the composer to the title, this would be more consistent. There seems no advantage to not adding single composer to title except a slightly shorter title.