Jason Salaz wrote: > > On 5/4/07, Chidade <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >> So... >> >> All latin (on the back of the CD) >> All kanji and kana (on the CD's obi and inside the CD booklet) >> A mix of kanji/kana and latin in other officially recognised places, like >> the website >> >> Which one of these should get put down as the original tracklisting? I >> suppose this is something we'd need to sort out before we decide what to >> do >> with the odd capitalization. otherwise it may be a non-issue. > > IMO, the CD is artist intent, the Obi is marketing / label add-ins. > I don't know if this is really the case, as I don't really know the > Japanese culture, but the assumption is that Obi Spine's are added > during production/shipping/wrapping, which means it's done by a > corporate entity and not the artist. > > The same could be said of jacket/cover art, but typically the artist > has a say on how their album looks. So I think the CD art has much > more bearing over an Obi, or anything else 'detached' from the > physical release. > I agree that the OBI shouldn't trump the CD itself as a source for intended spelling/script. In many cases the whole purpose of the OBI is to translate the CD into kanji/kana that the Japanese buyer can read. Kind of an "on CD transliteration". Another main reason we should keep focusing on the CD itself is that since OBI are disposable many people won't have them anymore, if CDs are traded they may not be a part of the trade, or if the CD is bought used from a music rental store (yes the rent music there) the OBI is sometimes not included or destroyed. The back of the album is basically always a part of the CD until the entire case is thrown out. Plus it's basic MB logic for all releases... When in doubt trust the actual CD.
I've been dealing with Japanese artists for a long time now (and started the translation/transliteration AR) and I have to advise extreme caution in making any hard set rules that control capitalization guidelines. Japanese artists aren't really that much different from regular western artists except that the question of artist intent comes into play much more often. Japanese often choose capitalization arbitrarily based of what looks cool and that can change from one font to another. Case in point check out capitalization on this Eric Clapton cover/tribute album http://store.yahoo.co.jp/starrecords/gycl10020.html , I'm pretty sure none of Eric's tracks were all caps. The fact that some are caps and some aren't just adds to the bizzare arbitrary capitalization. And sometimes imported VA albums of western artists will have all tracks in caps just because it's not Kanji/Kana. On English releases we judge capitalization based off what we think artist intent is. The album "American Idiot" by Green Day has full caps for all tracks on the CD, in the liner notes, and on the official site. But MB applies normal capitalization because it's obvious from the album's design that the font styling has more to do with it than anything else. Many Punk releases are similar with all caps while techno/trance seems to do alot of all lower case (I've wondered what that says about the different music styles). With other artists it's obvious the caps changes are deliberate, for Japanese artists "Tommy Heavenly 6" is notorious for this, also throwing in symbols seemingly at random. What I'm getting at is that basically the normal rules should apply, just have a more open mind for Artist Intent. 1. Kanji/Romaji - Moot since it has no case (I think this is why Japanese seemingly don't care about capitalization, I believe the required English schooling teaches mostly with caps because it's easier to differentiate letters, explaining the major use of caps in tracks). 2. Romaji (Transliteration) - There's no guide but a long time ago Nikki got me in the habit to capitalize the first letter of each word except particles (wiki usually uses the same). 3. English - Same as usual but keep a much more open mind to artist intent than usual. If they can't make up their mind and change from CD to website, default to normal rules (since they're probably just doing it based on font anyway). If CD and official website match, go with that assuming artist intent. I don't think we should just say Japanese albums can do whatever the hell they want because it's too difficult to sort out. That's just a cop-out that invites alot of bad edits with people basically saying, "It's Japanese, the rules every other language follow don't apply." I also don't think we should be listing fully English albums as Japanese even with the weird capitalization they use. WHEN I write LIKE THIS, I'm stiLL WRITING in ENGLISH NOT JAPANese. The language is still English, the only thing that has changed is that my (artist) intent was for it to be capitalized different. And I think that's the key issue here, when Japanese use English (or other languages) they are still using English, they are just more likely to throw in their own intent than we're used to. To make new rules on top of the rules we already have just because it's a bit harder is just adding needless complexity to the issue. If we're not careful this could spiral out of control just like classical guidelines did and it will become a sub-set of MusicBrainz guidelines where you have to re-learn new rules just to add Japanese tracks and artists. Most Japanese issues can be dealt with by enforcing the rules we have instead of adding new ones. Going back to the above issue of imported western artist in all caps we shouldn't have a rule saying "It was a Japanese release so just copy the CD, even though the capitalization is different than the original artist." On a side note. Another hairy new issue that needs to be addressed (and will make mo mad) is Transl*ation of non-Japanese words written in Katakana. Basically Japanese use Katakana to transliterate English into their own script, when we convert them back I think we need to convert them back to the original English word instead of a direct translation to avoid double translation issues. Song->ソング->SONGU Should be: Song->ソング->Song Deciphering Katakana can be kind of fun sometimes. テレフォン->TEREFON should be written as "Telephone" http://www.thinkgeek.com/images/products/zoom/japanese_for_beginners.jpg Sorry for the length of this post, ironically I'm going to Japan in 4 days and don't know how long it will be before I have internet going again and I wanted to get my $0.05 in, since this may likely be decided before I'm settled in. -Kerensky97 -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Japanese-capitalisation-fun-tf3684956s2885.html#a10403410 Sent from the Musicbrainz - Style mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@lists.musicbrainz.org http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style
