[mb-users] distinct artist names

[Will Holcomb]

I've been poking around at the musicbrainz database for a couple days
and I have a couple questions concerning artist collaborations. I've
searched through the wiki some and the list archives, and haven't
really seen an answer to my question.

>From the "OfficialStyleGuideline" I read: "When two artists
collaborate, file the track under the PrimaryArtist, and append the
name of the SecondaryArtist to the TrackTitle like this '(feat.
Everlast)'."

I was wondering if this practice had been abandoned and the
documentation not updated. When I run: "select count(*) from artist
where name like '% & %' or name like '% and %' " it returns over
26,000 entries. Some of them are the names or bands or groups that
have "and" in them like "Buddy DeFranco & His Orchestra," but the
majority of them aren't. Is this erroneous information that has been
entered, or is it intentional?

http://musicbrainz.org/artist/b77bb955-4b08-4a2c-917e-87085328a3ce.html

I found it more interesting to find the same phenomenon in the
advanced metadata. Some of the entries have multiple artists and some
combine them into a single artist.

Never Give All the Heart (feat. Brenda Fricker & Anúna):
        was performed by Anúna and Brenda Fricker
http://musicbrainz.org/track/c7ffb015-4e41-49d1-94bb-393bfcc5c7d1.html

You Nearly Lose Your Mind (feat. Willie Nelson & Waylon Jennings)
        was performed by Waylon Jennings & Willie Nelson
http://musicbrainz.org/track/423653ed-5515-4b0d-98ae-0e2a6fc21d41.html

http://musicbrainz.org/show/artist/?artistid=199813

I am going to assume those are always an error since you don't gain
anything with these composite artist names other than the tracks not
being listed under the individual artists.

My question is as to whether it is possible to get a list of artist
names that doesn't have these composites in them. I'm working on a
project where I'm presenting lists of artists and these duplicates are
undesirable.

The reason I ask about the correct style for collaborations is I want
to know when to submit corrections and what data is correct so far as
musicbrainz is concerned.

It seems as though the current use for metadata only includes a
performer record for collaboration artists that aren't listed in the
composite title. For example:

http://musicbrainz.org/track/1c20a5da-d780-4e66-8285-14bb9abb37ba.html

The title record lists the artist as "Bill Haley & His Comets" there
is a link relationship to "Marshall Lytle." What does this mean? I'm
assuming it means that both artists performed on the track, correct?

http://musicbrainz.org/track/01c7d02d-71cd-42fe-99bc-6dfe7aec5301.html

Artist "Brian Eno & David Byrne," link to "David Byrne." So both Brian
Eno & David Byrne performed? Are there any issues with having a link
to Brian Eno as well?

What I was considering was pretty much ignoring the artist link in the
track table for composite artists. For Lady Marmalade, which is
currently by an artist with the name "Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim,
Mýa & Pink," instead of making the track by Christina Aguilera and
modifying the track name with a (feat.) addition, simply adding links
to each of those artists in the links for that track.

Breaking the composite artist names apart and being able to
reconstruct them is beyond the scope of this database currently and
not something I personally want to tackle. All that I want is to be
able to do is determine which entries in the artist table are
composite names so I can omit them.

Will Holcomb