Hi - Thanks for your comments Alex, particularly some of the historical perspective which seems to be sadly undocumented within the wiki. I've a few points on which to respond though.
On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 11:42:04 -0700 (PDT), Alex Dupuy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Second, I think that there is consensus on the list that > > 1. The "artist" for instrumental scores (for films) should be the composer > 2. The "artist" for classical music used on soundtracks should be the > composer > 3. The "artist" for popular music used on soundtracks should be the > performer > 4. The issues for games / rips are confusing and need to be pulled out > into > separate guidelines That boils down the artist attribution argument reasonably well, though as this discussion makes clear there should also be an explanation for *why* it is that way. > By pseudo-ARs are you referring to "collaboration" artists which are used > for just a few tracks on one or two releases? This is indeed one of the > reasons track-level performer artists really are unworkable. Oops - I rushed that off a bit too quickly. I did, of course, mean pseudo-artists. :-) > Now there is one thing that I do agree with artysmokes about, which is > that > the elimination of all performance ExtraTitleInformation is a bad thing. > Just as classical guidelines allow (maybe even encourage?) featured artist > credits as ExtraTitleInformation (e.g. "Ninth Symphony (New York > Philharmonic feat. conductor: Leonard Bernstein)" I think that including > cast/version ExtraTitleInformation for musical theater/film soundtracks > (e.g. "Carousel (Original Broadway Cast)") is a good thing, and provides > crucial performance information in a way that doesn't require the creation > of bogus or myriad collaboration artists. I don't remember any discussion > where it was agreed that either of these kinds of ExtraTitleInformation > should be eliminated (but perhaps I missed it or have forgotten). Yes, the area I realised I hadn't addressed at all in my earlier posts was SoundtrackTitleStyle - I've thought quite a bit about SoundtrackStyle, but not so much about the other. There is a pair of releases I own that I keep pondering - the score and sound track releases of Armageddon. http://musicbrainz.org/release/dd98f74d-b578-4895-92aa-89f8e0106c2f.html and http://musicbrainz.org/release/134eb7a9-95c7-4836-be03-3cbd98c7744f.html are both in my collection but I can only distinguish my tagged digital copies by the MB ID. There's definitely a requirement for extra title information in that case, but I've been reluctant to make an edit based on the existing proposed style guides while this discussion is ongoing. Having read the argument that we should name the release after what is on the cover in full, on most front covers of film soundtracks the title is represented using some form of logo. Usually the association of movie artwork and the stylised logo, is enough so that when you look at it you associate it with the film without need for text telling you it is a soundtrack. Where text like 'Original Soundtrack' is included it is usually in a different face and style, and often would be considered a *description* of what is contained within rather than part of the title. Some may consider it a sub-title, but you could equally well consider it a description of what is within. The only place where such a designation would be found forming part of the title in many cases is on the spine text, where the cover designer is somewhat space-constrained in terms of potential to use custom logos or faces (particularly when you consider vinyl releases). If we follow slavishly what is written on the spine, we would end up with numerous permutations of "Original Score Recording", "Original Soundtrack Recording", "Motion Picture Soundtrack", "Broadway Cast Recording", "Music from..." etc embedded in release titles. That said, the proposed SoundtrackTitleStyle does give provision for including extra information to disambiguate similar releases. The problem seems to be the AND conjunction between the two bulletted clauses which requires that there be both a need to disambiguate, and suitable text on the cover forming part of the title. In the Armageddon example the non-score release could legitimately be renamed "Armageddon: The Album" by my reading. The various Sound of Music releases couldn't though because some or all of them lack a designation on the cover. I've rambled a bit there, but I think my conclusion is that SoundtrackTitleStyle is probably OK in principle but could use refinement. Primarily we should allow arbitrary Extra Title Information as required for disambiguation purposes, regardless of whether it is in the title as printed on the cover, though if it is on the cover the wording there should probably be followed. Where a release has printed "Original Score Recording" or "O.S.T." on the cover just for the purposes of indicating that it is a soundtrack of some kind, and there's no ambiguity, then my sense is it should probably be omitted. Regards, Barry _______________________________________________ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@lists.musicbrainz.org http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style
