[mb-style] How to handle band/artist name changes

[Noa Groveman]

This matter is complicated by the fact that many artists intentionally
release works under different performance names, usually when they are
legally required to do so (because of a label contract) but sometimes for
other reasons.  I've always been of the opinion that the name of the MB
artist should correspond to the name that is printed on the cover of the CD
or the vinyl insert.. in many cases artists are explicit about which name
they wish their album to be released under.  ABBA, for example, released
their first single under the performance name "Björn & Benny, Agnetha &
Anni-Frid", before they changed their name to ABBA - the artists intent was
for that single to be released by "Björn & Benny, Agnetha & Anni-Frid", and
Musicbrainz should reflect that wish.  (btw the musicbrainz entry for ABBA
is a complete mess and needs serious work by an ABBA expert)

In Musicbrainz, performance names are listed alongside other relationships,
but perhaps it would be more astute to provide an option to display all
releases associated with a particular artist (including all of his/her/their
performance names and associated bands), so, in a glance, a browsing user
could see all the releases that a particular artist or person had a hand in,
without having to navigate through many different artists.

-Noa Groveman

On 10/4/06, Age Bosma <agebosma at home.nl> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I know this discussion has been raised before but there wasn't much
> response on the matter at that time.
>
> There aren't clear guidelines about how to store releases when bands or
> artists have changed their name.
>
> A classic example would be Prince [1] with the following names:
> - Prince
> - T.A.F.K.A.P.
> - Symbol
>
> Currently all releases are stored under one and the same name: Prince.
> In a way this makes sense since there's clearly talk about one and the
> same artist. On the other hand, don't we want to know which release was
> released under which name?
>
> Yesterday I made an edit [2] to merge two bands because they are exactly
> the same. The band DragonForce [3] used to be called DragonHeart [4].
> They released one demo under their old name and changed the name
> afterwards to prevent confusion with a different band called
> DragonHeart. In this case there's nothing more to it, it's one and the
> same band. They even mention their first demo on the DragonForce website
> with a note that it was released under their old name DragonHeart.
> If the Prince situation is an excepted approach then the DragonForce ->
> DragonHeart situation should apply here as well, no?
>
> This approach, however, isn't an ideal solution:
> - As Aaron Cooper stated before: "When a band changes their name, in the
> MB system now we lose all connection with their previous releases under
> an old name because we are only viewing one artist's page."
> - Simply adding previous names as an alias is wrong since the aliases
> aren't meant for this purpose.
> - Adding one and the same release to both artists is a waste of time and
> resources. Not to mention that this would result in having to maintain
> both releases separately.
>
> Keeping both artist names with an AR between the two of them, specifying
> the begin and end period, will offer us the most flexibility.
> Having both artists in the db allows us to do one of the following:
> 1. File all releases under the most recent name. This will result in a
> 'dummy' artist in case of the previous names.
> 2. File each release under the name it was released under. This gives us
> the distinction we want but the most recent name will not list all
> releases people might expect under that name.
>
> Both problems can be addressed by implementing different handling views:
> Option 1:
> - Display releases which fall in a specific name period under that name
> automatically.
> Option 2:
> - Display all releases under the most recent name.
>
> Views for both options:
> - List previous name(s) when viewing the most recent name.
> - Mention most recent name when viewing a previous name.
> - Mention the previous name under which it was released when viewing a
> release.
>
> There will probably be more complex name change issues at some stage
> where e.g. an artist changes his name and later changes back to a
> previous name again. To overcome this:
> Option 1:
> - Offer multiple start and end dates for a specific name.
> - Or create duplicate artist names but this will become a mess to
> maintain.
> Option 2:
> - Multiple start and end dates can be offered but it isn't really
> required.
>
> Moving from the situation we have now to a perfect solution will require
> a lot of code changes and thus it will take a long time before it's
> done. Nevertheless I think it's important to at least establish some
> form of agreement/guideline on how we should handle things at this stage
> and/or how on a later stage.
>
> 1. We could start creating multiple artist, file all releases under the
> most recent name and creating AR's between the most recent name and the
> previous ones. As a result we will have what appears to be dummy artists
> for the time being. It will probably also require much more code changes
> and take more resources.
>
> 2. We could keep duplicate artists, file each release under each
> separate artist name and create an AR to the most recent name. On a
> later stage this could result in less (resource taking) code changes.
> Instead of checking for each possible release under the most recent name
> when viewing a previous name you now only have to check for all releases
> under all previous names when viewing the most recent one. This method
> seems to me to be the most db semantically correct as well.
>
> Yours,
>
> Age (Prodoc)
>
>
> [1] http://musicbrainz.org/show/artist/aliases.html?artistid=153
> [2] http://musicbrainz.org/show/edit/?editid=5706428
> [3]
> http://musicbrainz.org/artist/ef58d4c9-0d40-42ba-bfab-9186c1483edd.html
> [4]
> http://musicbrainz.org/artist/757b9d20-1504-4d1b-ba52-575fdd2ac56f.html
>
>
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