On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 5:16 PM, monxton <musicbra...@jordan-maynard.org> wrote: > I'd like some clarification please, about Duos and their representation > in NGS. > > I do a lot of editing of traditional folk music, and in this world there > are many duos. It's always been something of an exercise of judgement to > decide which to enter as collaborations and which as groups, but I tried > to follow the guidance in the old wiki: > > "This (collaboration) relationship type is only intended for short-term > projects consisting of independent artists, who move on after the > collaboration is finished. If the target artist was not this type of > project, then Member Of Band Relationship Type should be used. "
This keeps being my vision of it. Collaboration for once-off stuff (or some electronic music singles, maybe), and split. Member for real duos, and not split. > However I'm sure that there is a considerable inconsistency about which > duos are listed as collaborations and which as member-of-band. > > During the NGS migration, some of the collaborations got split into two > or more primary artists, and some, for various reasons, did not. AFAIK, > the duos which had been created as members-of-band did not get split. > > Now, in the frenzy of post-NGS fixing up, I am troubled to see editors > trying to "fix" not only the genuine collaboration-type duos (such as Ry > Cooder & just-about-anyone), but also some very enduring band-type duos, > a notable example being Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick > (http://musicbrainz.org/artist/1f109e76-1879-445a-b9dd-b86b69cbcb35) who > have a recording history of 40 years and tour regularly. It's not my > understanding that it was ever the intention of NGS to "break up" these > types of duo. Similar examples could be Máire Ní Chathasaigh & Chris > Newman > (http://musicbrainz.org/artist/3d7edec4-6ce2-4e76-9e0d-c106b1ed8297), > Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara > (http://musicbrainz.org/artist/a3b20f82-df36-45cd-9ca3-d1e047d877f5), > Liz Carroll & John Doyle > (http://musicbrainz.org/artist/7feb9ebf-2eb9-427a-a878-0e85c71e8939), > and so on. While duos which are preserved by virtue of having only one > surname or omitting their first names would include Spiers & Boden, > Richard & Linda Thompson, Simon & Garfunkel, Norma & Lal Waterson, and > many more. > > To my mind duos can be just as much bands as those with more than two > members, and should remain first-class citizens in Musicbrainz with > their own annotations, aliases, relationships etc., just like bands with > more members or more complicated names. I'm put in mind of John Spiers > and Jon Boden who, on receiving their Best Duo award at the BBC Folk > Awards 200x said "we'd like to thank all the people who refused to play > with us, without whom we would not be receiving this award." > > See here: http://musicbrainz.org/edit/14583494. Did I miss the memo, or > do we need some clearer guidance on this topic? > > (One thing I should add for the benefit of those unfamiliar with this > world: it is perfectly normal for a folk artist to be a member of > several bands simultaneously - as many as their schedules will permit - > it's a more promiscuous world than rock/pop's serial monogamy. This > shouldn't lead you to infer that they are not "real" members.) > > _______________________________________________ > MusicBrainz-style mailing list > MusicBrainz-style@lists.musicbrainz.org > http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style > -- Nicolás Tamargo de Eguren _______________________________________________ MusicBrainz-style mailing list MusicBrainz-style@lists.musicbrainz.org http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style
