The Hills are Alive with... (The Great Soundtrack Debate)
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The Hills are Alive with... (The Great Soundtrack Debate)
by artysmokes
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Here's a nice quiz. Which artist is associated with "The Sound of Music"? Who performed "My Favourite Things" and "Maria"? That's right! Richard Rogers!
Er... In case you got those questions wrong, here's an easier one. Which child star made the song "Somewhere over the Rainbow" famous? Hmmm. Pat yourself on the back if you said Harold Arlen. Er... Many MBz editors aren't interested in soundtracks, but it seems the ones that are have an esoteric way of dealing with them. I don't see a need for soundtracks to be treated any differently to pop records. They are sold to more or less the same customer base, and come in colourful sleeves with a handy list of artists and titles, so why is there a guideline telling editors to use *composers* for songs for whom the *performer* is universally known? Why were musical composers chosen instead of their equally talented lyricists? Why, to cut to the quick, do we have to mess up something that was perfectly fine as it was? On the OST recording of The Sound of Music, the main artist is Julie Andrews. It's *her* flinging her arms up as she "Climbs Ev'ry Mountain" on the sleeve, not Richard Rogers (or Oscar Hammerstein III for that matter). "The Wizard of Oz" is all about Judy Garland and some men in fancy dress, not an old guy hunched over a manuscript. We have ARs for composers and lyricists. To the average music fan, they are strictly small print, bless 'em. Except for the special (yet arguable) case of classical releases, I think the Artist should be the *performer*. Everyone outside of Musicbrainz recognises this, so why can't we? If, like me, you think SoundtrackStyle and the equally superfragilisticexpialatrocious SoundtrackTitleStyle are a crock of sh!t, then go to the relevant wiki pages and speak your brains. If not, please tell me which of albums listed as "The Sound of Music" or "The Wizard of Oz" on MBz contains the actual songs from the films, because without the ExtraTitleInformation or performing artists that have been removed, I don't know where to look. Stupid Guidelines: http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/SoundtrackStyle and http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/SoundtrackTitleStyle -- Cheers, Friend of Dorothy |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The Great Soundtrack Debate)
by Paula Callesøe
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artysmokes wrote:
> Except for the special (yet arguable) case of classical releases, I > think the Artist should be the *performer*. Everyone outside of Musicbrainz > recognises this, so why can't we? > Thoroughly agree with this. The Sound of Music is one of my all-time favorites and I got your initial questions wrong (according to MB). :/ "How do you solve a problem like Ma-Musicbrainz?" -- Paula Callesøe aka spacefish & Mrs. Steele =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= play : The Lord of the Rings Online view : Fracture read : Stephen King - The Dark Tower hear : voices... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= _______________________________________________ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@... http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The Great Soundtrack Debate)
by Kuno Woudt-2
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On Tue, Sep 18, 2007 at 11:22:13PM -0700, artysmokes wrote:
> so why is there a guideline telling editors to use *composers* for > songs for whom the *performer* is universally known? It makes sense for scores, but indeed not for many soundtracks, any attempt at a SoundtrackStyle has tried to apply to both AFAIK (and that just isn't going to work :) --kuno. _______________________________________________ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@... http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The Great Soundtrack Debate)
by Philip Jägenstedt-3
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Isn't it the case that different users want different things and that
the same thing doesn't apply to all releases? When I've added soundtracks I've tried to use the performing artist (because it's on the sleeve and it's the only thing I know). But for some soundtracks, like Spirited Away (http://musicbrainz.org/release/7327ef89-e214-4f90-8d5d-3e56ffe21d0b.html) I'm far more interested in knowing the composer (Joe Hisaishi) than what orchestra happened to record it. I'm not particularly passionate about the style for soundtracks either way, but I doubt that simply saying that the performer is the artist will cut it in all cases. Just my 2分... Philip On 9/19/07, Paula Callesøe <spacefish@...> wrote: > artysmokes wrote: > > Except for the special (yet arguable) case of classical releases, I > > think the Artist should be the *performer*. Everyone outside of Musicbrainz > > recognises this, so why can't we? > > > Thoroughly agree with this. The Sound of Music is one of my all-time > favorites and I got your initial questions wrong (according to MB). :/ > > "How do you solve a problem like Ma-Musicbrainz?" > > -- > Paula Callesøe > aka spacefish & Mrs. Steele > > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > play : The Lord of the Rings Online > view : Fracture > read : Stephen King - The Dark Tower > hear : voices... > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > > > _______________________________________________ > Musicbrainz-style mailing list > Musicbrainz-style@... > http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style > _______________________________________________ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@... http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The Great Soundtrack Debate)
by Paula Callesøe
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Philip Jägenstedt wrote:
> Isn't it the case that different users want different things and that > the same thing doesn't apply to all releases? When I've added > soundtracks I've tried to use the performing artist (because it's on > the sleeve and it's the only thing I know). But for some soundtracks, > like Spirited Away > (http://musicbrainz.org/release/7327ef89-e214-4f90-8d5d-3e56ffe21d0b.html) > I'm far more interested in knowing the composer (Joe Hisaishi) than > what orchestra happened to record it. > As far as musicals are concerned, I think where there are vocals, the performer should be listed. When the soundtrack is instrumental, the composer is appropriate. I know for my own collection, I prefer this method and will generally retag anything Musicbrainz does that is contrary to it. -- Paula Callesøe aka spacefish & Mrs. Steele =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= play : The Lord of the Rings Online view : Fracture read : Stephen King - The Dark Tower hear : Underworld - Rowla =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= _______________________________________________ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@... http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The Great Soundtrack Debate)
by Philip Jägenstedt-3
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By all means try writing a soundtrack style guide that you think would
work. The current one is just a proposal... On 9/19/07, Paula Callesøe <spacefish@...> wrote: > Philip Jägenstedt wrote: > > Isn't it the case that different users want different things and that > > the same thing doesn't apply to all releases? When I've added > > soundtracks I've tried to use the performing artist (because it's on > > the sleeve and it's the only thing I know). But for some soundtracks, > > like Spirited Away > > (http://musicbrainz.org/release/7327ef89-e214-4f90-8d5d-3e56ffe21d0b.html) > > I'm far more interested in knowing the composer (Joe Hisaishi) than > > what orchestra happened to record it. > > > > As far as musicals are concerned, I think where there are vocals, the > performer should be listed. When the soundtrack is instrumental, the > composer is appropriate. I know for my own collection, I prefer this > method and will generally retag anything Musicbrainz does that is > contrary to it. > > -- > Paula Callesøe > aka spacefish & Mrs. Steele > > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > play : The Lord of the Rings Online > view : Fracture > read : Stephen King - The Dark Tower > hear : Underworld - Rowla > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > > > _______________________________________________ > Musicbrainz-style mailing list > Musicbrainz-style@... > http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style > _______________________________________________ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@... http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The Great Soundtrack Debate)
by Paula Callesøe
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Philip Jägenstedt wrote:
> By all means try writing a soundtrack style guide that you think would > work. The current one is just a proposal... > No, thank you. I was just giving my opinion. ;) -- Paula Callesøe aka spacefish & Mrs. Steele =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= play : The Lord of the Rings Online view : Fracture read : Stephen King - The Dark Tower hear : Underworld - Air Towel =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= _______________________________________________ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@... http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The Great Soundtrack Debate)
by Barry Platt
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Hi all - This was discussed recently but unfortunately that discussion tailed off fairly quickly without any consensus being reached. My feeling is that there is a need for some sort of style guideline for how to deal with the myriad different types of releases one might find in the soundtrack section of a music store - the benchmark I use for what an uninitiated observer might reasonably consider a "soundtrack". Some of these MB will consider soundtracks, others we wouldn't - I posted some examples in the earlier discussion. Defining exactly what we consider to be a soundtrack is essential in my opinion as it isn't necessarily obvious to everybody, including myself. There are releases in MB that to me should be soundtracks, no question, and others that shouldn't. The second point is that there are cases where it is appropriate to use a classical attribution style - notably on film scores - and others where it would make more sense to attribute using the performer as we do in most other cases. The problem seems to lie in defining where classical and non-classical style should apply. A simple guideline of Score=classical and anything else attributes the performer seems overly simplistic to me. Using your example of The Sound of Music, while you're right that Julie Andrews is the main performer, there are tracks with other contributors. Does Julie Andrews even perform on "How do you Solve a Problem like Maria?" (a song *about* her character rather than *by* her), for example? Crediting Julie Andrews as artist on the entire release is at best partially wrong. Other musicals don't even have a single primary performer, so should we make pseudo artists representing the entire main cast? While I take your point that it is perhaps more of interest to an end user to identify with the performer, how different is this to the discussion surrounding ClassicalStyle? At least for ensemble performances where artist attributions could easily vary from track to track (Artist A/Artist B on one track, Artist A/Artist C on another, and Artist A/Artist B/Artist C on a third), the composer(s) would appear to make more sense, and ARs are there to represent performances in a more meaningful way than multiple pseudo-artists. I note http://musicbrainz.org/release/031159eb-ebed-4dd0-a1fb-71902ad2de8c.html doesn't have any ARs to attribute performers, or an annotation to the release indicating that it is the motion picture version of the soundtrack starring Julie Andrews. Both are allowed and should be there, but either would address the problem you raised in the annotation. I'm not disagreeing that Soundtrack and SoundtrackTitle styles are a mess and need reworking. Indeed I'd even be willing to have a stab a doing so myself if we could form at least a basic consensus on these points. Regards, Barry _______________________________________________ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@... http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The Great Soundtrack Debate)
by Aaron Cooper-3
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On 9/19/07, Philip Jägenstedt <philip@...> wrote:
> Isn't it the case that different users want different things and that > the same thing doesn't apply to all releases? When I've added > soundtracks I've tried to use the performing artist (because it's on > the sleeve and it's the only thing I know). But for some soundtracks, > like Spirited Away > (http://musicbrainz.org/release/7327ef89-e214-4f90-8d5d-3e56ffe21d0b.html) > I'm far more interested in knowing the composer (Joe Hisaishi) than > what orchestra happened to record it. > > I'm not particularly passionate about the style for soundtracks either > way, but I doubt that simply saying that the performer is the artist > will cut it in all cases. I like performers as artists but as it has been pointed out, it get tricky when a large group of people perform a song -- who gets credited? I suppose whoever is printed on the cover, that's who. If someone wants to see composers in their tags, I suggest they setup PicardQt to set the Artist field equal to the Composer field when ReleaseType = Soundtrack. -Aaron _______________________________________________ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@... http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The Great SoundtrackDebate)
by Barry Platt
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Hi - On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 08:51:50 -0400, "Aaron Cooper" <cooperaa@...> wrote: > I like performers as artists but as it has been pointed out, it get > tricky when a large group of people perform a song -- who gets > credited? I suppose whoever is printed on the cover, that's who. Well, taking The Sound of Music (again), front and back covers of the 40th anniversary edition can be found at http://www.cduniverse.com/search/xx/music/pid/6973973/a/Sound+Of+Music:+40th+Anniversary+Edition.htm with a different front at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sound-Music-40th-Anniversary-Special/dp/B0006OR0VC/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/202-2705555-2402214?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1190206769&sr=8-2. The front cover at Amazon credits only Rodgers and Hammerstein (the composers) but features a photograph of Julie Andrews. The cduniverse scan has Robert Wise (the director), Julie Andrews & Christopher Plummer (performers) and Irwin Kostal (conductor) clearly credited. While R&H don't have the largest credit on the cover, they're credited next to the title which to my eye gives them greater prominence. Overall, between the two conflicting cover scans, R&H seem to win in terms of prominence on the cover. If one is going to attribute the entire album to Andrews and Plummer (who are given co-billing as performers on the cover that includes their names), then that is misleading for many tracks on the album. In the example here (rear cover scan can be found at the cduniverse link), there are a couple of instrumental or choral tracks, and several that feature neither Andrews or Plummer. (Lets ignore the interviews in the bonus tracks for the purposes of this discussion.) To my mind we shouldn't be shoehorning facts into our view of what the Artist is for a given release. While it may be convenient for some purposes, attributing "Sixteen going on Seventeen" to Andrews and Plummer is simply wrong. If we do the assignments at track level, then we have to work out who contributes to each track (considerable research) and we'll end up with an unmanageable set of pseudo-ARs to represent all combinations, as you note. I'm definitely of the view that composer works here, and that ARs should be representing the more specific performance roles on a track-by-track basis where the information is available. The release annotation can be used to provide details of the specific version of a release. No offence, but if someone wants to see performers in their artist tags, can they not setup PicardQt to set the Artist field equal to the Performer field? Try http://musicbrainz.org/release/e730042f-b50f-4d48-979a-ada82efb9a11.html for an example where the composer is attributed as Artist, but performances are included as ARs. It isn't perfect, but it is somewhat closer to what I'm describing - there's a little data missing but as far as I can see nothing there is *wrong*. Regards, Barry _______________________________________________ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@... http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The Great SoundtrackDebate)
by Alex Dupuy
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First, I'd like to say that I agree 100% with Barry's comments about why there are good reasons for filing soundtracks for musical theater/films under the composer.
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 The contentious area is (as always) soundtracks for musical theater/film - where the characters in the work actually perform the musical pieces in the work (making it a bit like opera in that regard). I'd also like to ask artysmokes to tone down the snarkiness a bit: The soundtrack guidelines may be a mess, but there are valid reasons (for musical theater/film releases) why we've chosen the "composer as primary artist" approach. Unfortunately, new editors come in, don't know all the history, and find the guidelines to be "stupid" without any attempt to understand what the trade-offs are (and how they have changed as MBz has gotten new features such as release artists for VA albums and ARs). 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. This is a good example of how by using performance ARs directly (rather than track- or release-level "artists") there is no need to create collaboration artists for each of the permutations of performers. I would almost wonder if it might make sense to credit a collaboration of Joss Whedon and Christophe Beck as the release artist (rather than VA), but as I think they worked on completely different parts (songs: Whedon, score: Beck) it isn't really a collaboration. There are a number of other undesirable things that the composer-as-artist approach helps to eliminate: * "Original Cast" artists. A few years ago there were hundreds of releases credited to bogus performers like "Cast" "Original London Cast" "Motion Picture Cast" etc. - of course no two releases listed under "Original Cast" actually had the same performers, as they were for unrelated musical theater/films. Do an artist search for Cast and you'll still find a few. * VA albums. Various Artist albums are the scruffy backyard of MBz - edits to them are generally less well reviewed and in general it's better if we can minimize them as much as possible. Since the performers on each track will be different, using performers leaves you with a VA release, but using the composer doesn't. Now that we can have a release artist for a VA album (a new feature from 2005), they get handled a bit better, but it's still better to avoid them if reasonably possible. * Fictional character credits. Especially for animated series, the actual performers (humans) who sing the songs are less well known and the performer credit goes to the character (i.e. "Dorothy" or "Maria" rather than Garland or Andrews). There are some cases where there is a meaningful fictional artist (maybe South Park characters) but this is generally not what we want. Having composer-as-artist as the guideline helps to prevent this. While I'm on the historical thing, I'll note that originally the artist was typically a collaboration artist for the composer + lyricist (e.g. Rogers & Hart). However, a few years ago, a whole bunch of editors coming to MBx from Last.fm came through and edited all these collaborations away, saying "soundtrack style is like classical, credit composer only." (I don't even remember any or much discussion on the -style list, it was just a wave of edits and futile to resist.) Since then, collaboration artists have proliferated throughout the database (as a result of the elimination of SG#5) and I really don't see any reason why they shouldn't be used, especially for cases like Rogers & Hart where the partnership was arguably as well or better known than either one of the performers individually. But I'm not going to go and re-attribute all those scores myself, I'm resigned to composer-as-artist (I would support a change if somebody else wants to make the RFC/RFV/editing effort). 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). @alex |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The GreatSoundtrackDebate)
by Barry Platt
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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 <alex.dupuy@...> 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@... http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The Great Soundtrack Debate)
by artysmokes
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While this view has been described as "simplistic" elsewhere, I definitely think it serves as a reminder that all soundtracks are not created equal, and that there is not a one-size-fits-all rule/guideline for them, but there *are* generally agreed types. Hopefully a revision of the wiki guideline will take into a account the idea that scores can generally be matched with composers while singers can be listed as Artists for the "pop" numbers, particularly when listed as such on the sleeves. I think each album has to be judged on its own merits and edits should be made on a track-by-track basis, rather than the mass changes I've noticed recently. Forgive me for dismissing the current guidelines as "stupid", as I didn't know the history, so thought they'd arrived out of thin air on a whim without discussion. I'm glad my comments have gained some attention, however. I was always a bit of an attention seeker. ;) -- Cheers |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The GreatSoundtrackDebate)
by chidade
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Just a few pointers that arose in my mind while reading all this discussion:
I generally agree with Alex about his four points: 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 But how are you going to define "classical"? How about "pop"? I remember having a large argument once about the definition of classical. Bigger music geeks than I can quote dates and sub-genres like Baroque and Romantic, etc etc. The point is that perhaps a better term like "symphonic" or "orchestral" should be used? Also, couldn't the songs in The Sound of Music be in a roundabout way be classified as pop? It's certainly *popular* music. And it was composed in the last 30 odd years. Personally I'd classify it as symphonic but there may be other editors out there that can't make the differentiation. This is an argument about genres, but having clear examples and a bit clearer terminology when we write the guidelines should help. Next point: Why is having V.A. such a bad thing? I'm a relatively new MB-er (been lurking for about 18 months with the occassional appearance) so maybe I don't know all the pitfalls, but I think I'd list MOST soundtracks as V.A. Especially, to go back to the "type of soundtrack" debate I just mentioned, you get soundtracks that have both. Last point: Looking over the style guidelines for both movies and games, this paragraph appears: "Soundtrack" is a single word, and should never be spelt out as "Sound Track" without good reason. For example, the OST of FFVII is called "Final Fantasy VII: Original Sound Track" whereas the OST of FFVIII is called " Final Fantasy VIII: Original Soundtrack", as clearly indicated on the packaging. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't those titles examples of when omitting the "original soundtrack" part, no matter how its spelt, is the best option? Actually, bad example, given that it could be confused with the game rips. Hah, I really agree with Alex's fourth point now. Mainly I just dislike having that Original Soundtrack, original score, original cast information. Information in tags can get too long as it is, especially with live performances....but that's a debate for another discussion.... Anyway, these are just my thoughts. They probably aren't very groundbreaking in terms of discussion. Mainly I'd just like some clarification from older members of MB. The historical background that Alex mentioned was great and I agree with Barry that more needs to be put into the wiki to help newer editors out. -Chidade On 20/09/2007, Barry Platt <bplatt@...> wrote:
-- http://chidade.net _______________________________________________ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@... http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The GreatSoundtrackDebate)
by Arturus Magi
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On 9/19/07, Chidade <chidade@...> wrote:
> > Why is having V.A. such a bad thing? I'm a relatively new MB-er (been > lurking for about 18 months with the occassional appearance) so maybe I > don't know all the pitfalls, but I think I'd list MOST soundtracks as V.A. > Especially, to go back to the "type of soundtrack" debate I just mentioned, > you get soundtracks that have both. > Because Various Artists is a horrible mess that noone can make any sense of. It's basically become a garbage heap where everything we can't easily describe gets thrown. On the the original topic of conversation, I would recommend listing the primary artist of the album itself as the composer (or composer + lyricist, as appropriate) and the tracks as appropriate of any other album of it's genre (which would generally be the performer). As for STS, I would recommend eliminating most of it entirely. The 're-title soundtracks' junk makes for a mess in quite a few places. _______________________________________________ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@... http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The GreatSoundtrackDebate)
by artysmokes
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Yes, I think this is the best compromise. Compare, for example, these listings of Soundtracks for "The Wizard of Oz" a) http://musicbrainz.org/release/c1c29c22-ec66-4b47-b96c-6a9a3b79c457.html Harold Arlen (chief composer) listed as ReleaseArtist; MGM Orchestra listed as artist for instrumental/orchestral tracks; performers (e.g. Judy Garland, Bert Lahr) listed as TrackArtists for the songs. (I could live without the artist known as "The Munchkins", but you can't have everything). All this info is apparently readily available on the record sleeve. b) http://musicbrainz.org/release/8b21a3c3-7991-4f36-abf5-2596751a3ef9.html Harold Arlen listed as ReleaseArtist and TrackArtist for all but the overture; no ARs supplied for any performances. Without my hastily-cribbed annotation, (which is evidently based on the record sleeve) no one would know who did the performances on this release, and might think it was a completely instrumental score. Example (a) seems to be a much more pleasing way of doing things. It doesn't result in perfection, but it's a compromise that won't lead to angry arguments. As I've said many times in the past, record companies provide info on the sleeves of their products because that's what people generally want. Composition credits get reduced to the small print on most releases (performance is everything), so it seems absurd to me that MBz sometimes goes against the grain in this regard. Arbitrarily listing artists and titles on MBz that are different to what people have in their hands at home is contrary to any dream of MBz being popular with the general music fan. Equally, would any mainstream licensee want data that doesn't match what's on the shelves of record stores? I hope the SoundtrackTitleStyle guideline will be rectified very soon. There are debatable grounds for removing certain ExtraTitleInformation on mainstream pop albums that have multiple format releases, but soundtracks can have so many different versions that it seems ludicrous to not allow any title differentiation. If we can agree on whether details like "The Score" or "Original Cast Recording" should be placed in parentheses or after a colon, that would be a nice start. (Someone in the thread above mentioned "Armageddon". I proposed to re-add the subtitle at http://musicbrainz.org/show/edit/?editid=7544754. Discussion is welcome there.) |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The Great SoundtrackDebate)
by artysmokes
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There were lots of things in this [SNIPPED] post that were illuminating and useful, but I just want to add my voice to the chorus saying that I agree with your view of the consensus. With a little rewording, that could be discussed on the Wiki, I'd support the 3 first points being included near the top of the Soundtrack Style Wikipage, as an immediate way for new editors to guage the general consensus without having to go through several mailing list pages for discussion of the finer points. -- Cheers, Arty |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The GreatSoundtrackDebate)
by Alex Dupuy
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I agree that tying this to "popular" music is problematic, especially since genres are so subjective. But we're already making a separation for classical in the Classical Style Guide. I think that perhaps a better way to express this is to say that for music originally released elsewhere the normal non-soundtrack rules should be used (popular: performer as artist; classical: composer as artist). This avoids problems deciding whether "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" is "popular" or not. There are still problems with this rule when a musician performs a song written specially for the work (think Celine Dion and Titanic) but a longer version of this might handle that: "for music originally released elsewhere, or performed by an artist who does not otherwise appear in the work." One of the big problems with (b) is that it is a VA album, and while having Harold Arlen as ReleaseArtist doesn't seem to bother you, having him as TrackArtist does (and I tend to agree). But the solution is not to change all the TrackArtists for the various tracks, the solution is to convert it back to a single-artist album credited to Harold Arlen, and add (feat. X) and ARs as I have done with http://musicbrainz.org/release/2bd69426-c00c-4efd-b150-a9d4844f76df.html (compare this with clunky VA version of this release at http://musicbrainz.org/release/7039f876-15a8-48db-a8d5-390a09cdc798.html pending merge). I would say rather that they provide this info because they think it will sell more records. There are a lot of cases where featured artists are well known but are not lead performers (this is more true of re-issues, and doesn't really apply to Judy Garland or the others in this case). It's just another form of marketing. @alex |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The GreatSoundtrackDebate)
by Kuno Woudt-2
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On Thu, Sep 20, 2007 at 11:02:05AM +1000, Chidade wrote:
> Just a few pointers that arose in my mind while reading all this discussion: > > I generally agree with Alex about his four points: > 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 I more or less agree on this (and don't think proper video game soundtrack releases differ from these points). In general, I think using whatever is on the cover or booklet should be used. Only when the booklet / backcover / frontcover isn't clear what the primary artist is for a track or for the release should we need guidelines to determine one. Note that many soundtrack albums contain only pop songs and no bits of score at all, those will end up as a VA release (and they should). The albums which are mostly score will end up with the composer as the release artist. Having a quick look at my small collection of physical soundtrack releases, that would work fine mostly. --kuno. _______________________________________________ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@... http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style |
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Re: The Hills are Alive with... (The GreatSoundtrackDebate)
by Sami Sundell
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On Thu, Sep 20, 2007 at 12:14:25AM -0400, Arturus Magi wrote:
> Because Various Artists is a horrible mess that noone can make any > sense of. It's basically become a garbage heap where everything we > can't easily describe gets thrown. Silly me, and I thought it contains releases that don't have a specified main artist. It may be a mess that nobody can make sense of, but that's a limitation of tools - it doesn't make various artist releases non-existing, nor should they be shunned. They do exist, and they should be listed as such. -- Sami Sundell sami.sundell@... _______________________________________________ Musicbrainz-style mailing list Musicbrainz-style@... http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style |
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