SpecialPurposeArtists

[Sami Sundell-2]

Hi.

A discussion started on IRC, and I thought I'd bring it here for a  
change.

Basically, what gives with the SpecialPurposeArtists? We have eight  
different [... chant] artists, and some collaborations to go with  
them. Why? What is the reasoning behind making these artists and  
separating them from [unknown]?


Are the [... chant] artists composers or performers, or something  
completely different? For the record, here are the different chants:
[gregorian chant] <http://musicbrainz.org/artist/ae636985-40e8-4010-ae02-0f35930f8017.html 
 >
[islamic chant] <http://musicbrainz.org/artist/47d57e4a-596d-4291-b3f4-d1eaec7a93c9.html 
 >
[Sarum chant] <http://musicbrainz.org/artist/68ed5e1f-c799-4cf9-9a3b-afeec7984d9a.html 
 >
[Byzantine chant] <http://musicbrainz.org/artist/90fa30e4-e342-4ae2-b5b4-e289b666c98c.html 
 >
[common chant] <http://musicbrainz.org/artist/ce4dfcb4-a7a7-4f2a-805d-18ef89da6df7.html 
 >
[znamenny chant] <http://musicbrainz.org/artist/abcdb57e-47de-4dc4-8aca-75b6b02cb2bd.html 
 >
[kiev chant] <http://musicbrainz.org/artist/708879c9-3310-4796-bc22-bf0bcc9808ff.html 
 >
[kiev-pechersk chant] <http://musicbrainz.org/artist/06243bb8-bb80-41ea-a498-ebe8eba4e07c.html 
 >

And of course, collaborations such as
  [gregorian chant] & Philippe Rogier <http://musicbrainz.org/artist/1caade93-ba40-4921-b8e3-cee7abe5d45f.html 
 >

Huh?

There are some other funny things, such as
[spiritual] <http://musicbrainz.org/artist/69944132-a149-427b-9ce3-745894ed23c4.html 
 >

Why is this a separate artist?

How about [anonymous] and [unknown]? What is the distinction? Yes, I  
can think of a few, nikki gave an example as well (use unknown if you  
don't know, anonymous if it's... anonymous), but both cases are  
defined to be UnknownArtist (<http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/ 
Unknown_Artist>), and can we really spot the difference, anyway?

<http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/SpecialPurposeArtist> also lists magic,  
informal artist called "Ethnic Music Compilations" <http://musicbrainz.org/artist/eea50253-7a54-4721-9056-b322a0adb5df.html 
 >. The release list contains eternal classics such as "French  
Military Marches"... How is this different from, say, "Bollywood" or  
"Musical", which are mentioned as no-no in the same page?

--
  Sami Sundell
  ssundell@...





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[Brian Schweitzer]

I'd agree that there are too many SPA's.  However, I wouldn't agree with merging too many of them, just because some seem overly similar on the face of things.

 

And of course, collaborations such as
 [gregorian chant] & Philippe Rogier <http://musicbrainz.org/artist/1caade93-ba40-4921-b8e3-cee7abe5d45f.html
 >

Huh?

Agreed, it looks wierd...  but following composer as artist, perhaps that's correct.  If Rogier was working as an "additional composer" for a traditional Gregorian chant for which [Gregorian chant] would be the correct artist, then this may indeed acurately be describing the two "artists" involved in the composition of some work.

 

There are some other funny things, such as
[spiritual] <http://musicbrainz.org/artist/69944132-a149-427b-9ce3-745894ed23c4.html

Why is this a separate artist?

I'd suggest the annotation for that artist explains it: "Another bogus artist similar to anon., trad., and gregorian chant but for African-American spiritual songs. As they don't fit any of the previous categories, a separate one was made."
 

How about [anonymous] and [unknown]? What is the distinction? Yes, I
can think of a few, nikki gave an example as well (use unknown if you
don't know, anonymous if it's... anonymous), but both cases are
defined to be UnknownArtist (<http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/
Unknown_Artist>), and can we really spot the difference, anyway?

I would generally take it as [unknown] being "I don't know", whereas [anonymous] would be "noone knows".  In the former cases, someone alive, or at least in a reference book, likely knows who played/composed/whatever'd somethnig.  In the latter, you've got the anonymous composition from 12th century France, and noone knows who wrote it.  Or, a more modern example: take a wax cylinder recording from the late 1890's.  It has no artist info on the slip of paper in the cylinder box, nor is there performer info in any advertising circular.  However, in many cases, there does remain info on who recorded what, when, in the pay records and other internal documents, which now have made their way to the various scholarly collections at various universities and the like.  Therefore, even though I don't know the artist, and no published book may know the artist, that artist may not be entirely unidentifyable, so I'd still use [unknown], saving [anonymous] for the truly unknown *and unknowable* artists/composers.
 

<http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/SpecialPurposeArtist> also lists magic,
informal artist called "Ethnic Music Compilations" <http://musicbrainz.org/artist/eea50253-7a54-4721-9056-b322a0adb5df.html
 >. The release list contains eternal classics such as "French
Military Marches"... How is this different from, say, "Bollywood" or
"Musical", which are mentioned as no-no in the same page?

I'm not a fan of the "Ethnic Music Compilations" SPA.  It seems to exist to avoid having a large number of "[German traditional]", "[French traditional]", etc. types of artists, for traditional folk songs.  Given that the specific ethnicity is lost, I'd suggest this is a superfluous SPA to some of the others, esp [anonymous], and in many cases - such as the military marches example you gave, there's likely composers known for at least some, if not all, such that the release could be eventually moved into a non-SPA for artist(s).  The distinction here from the Bollywood, etc. cases would be, I think, that all of the SPAs in the lower list are essentially specialized versions of [unknown], whereas the SPA collecting the "[... traditional]"s would be a specialized version of [anonymous]; we can figure out who composed song X for the soundtrack to movie Y, but the name of the composer of Italian traditional song Z may be lost to the ages, and entirely unknowable.

Brian

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[Brant Gibbard]

And of course, collaborations such as
 [gregorian chant] & Philippe Rogier <http://musicbrainz.org/artist/1caade93-ba40-4921-b8e3-cee7abe5d45f.html
 >

Huh?

Agreed, it looks wierd...  but following composer as artist, perhaps that's correct.  If Rogier was working as an "additional composer" for a traditional Gregorian chant for which [Gregorian chant] would be the correct artist, then this may indeed acurately be describing the two "artists" involved in the composition of some work.

 

 

I did that recording, and what you describe is exactly the situation. I seem to recall those tracks contained keyboard sections specifically composed by Rogier to be interspersed among the sections of the traditional Gregorian chant.

 

Brant Gibbard
Toronto, ON
http://bgibbard.ca

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[Sami Sundell-2]

On 26.8.2009, at 14.24, Brian Schweitzer wrote:

> > There are some other funny things, such as
> > [spiritual] <http://musicbrainz.org/artist/69944132-a149-427b-9ce3-745894ed23c4.html
> > Why is this a separate artist?

> I'd suggest the annotation for that artist explains it: "Another  
> bogus artist similar to anon., trad., and gregorian chant but for  
> African-American spiritual songs. As they don't fit any of the  
> previous categories, a separate one was made."

That explains it in that context, but not the reason behind it. There  
is a fitting category - anonymous/unknown. Why do we want or need to  
separate the spiritual music from others? For that matter, why do we  
need to separate gregorian chants? That sounds awfully lot like  
genres, except for some reason these are accepted, and we're using, of  
all things, artist field to define the genre.

> I would generally take it as [unknown] being "I don't know", whereas  
> [anonymous] would be "noone knows".  In

So would I, but our guidelines don't agree - http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Unknown_Artist

Maybe [anonymous] should then be promoted into list of "official"  
special purpose artists, and the distinction mentioned in wiki.

> I'm not a fan of the "Ethnic Music Compilations" SPA.  It seems to  
> exist to avoid having a large number of "[German traditional]",  
> "[French traditional]", etc. types of artists, for traditional folk  
> songs.
>   Given that the specific ethnicity is lost, I'd suggest this is a  
> superfluous SPA to some of the others, esp [anonymous], and in many  
> cases - such as the military marches example you gave, there's  
> likely composers known for at least some, if not all, such that the  
> release could be eventually moved into a non-SPA for artist(s).

That sounds a plausible explanation, but because it's not documented  
anywhere, at least I wouldn't use that artist for anything.  
Particularly since the name is so ugly 8)

And yes. If we want to store the national variants, then there should  
be separate artists for that. If not, then they should go under  
[anonymous], [unknown], [traditional] or whichever we decide is the  
most useful. Right now, that artist doesn't seem to help anyone, and  
for some reason it doesn't even match the generic square-bracketed  
notation of that sort of artists.

--
  Sami Sundell
  ssundell@...





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