[mb-users] Various Artists....or not?

[Chris B]

2008/4/30 Fred Marchee <fred at intercookie.com>:
>
>  On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 4:21 PM, Chris B <chris at whenironsattack.com> wrote:
>
>
>  (as an aside i think we should only have one entry for "The Supremes"
>  as "Diana Ross & ..." was just a marketing thing. it's the same
>  group...the memberships have changed over the years (like most of the
>  major motown groups) but i see little benefit in fragmenting their
>  discography when we have membership ARs that could be set up, but i'm
>  sure we're all tired of this topic!).
>
>  I don't agree that it's just a marketing thing, I think there's an
> important distinction. But on the other hand, while thinking about
> whether it made sense to split the 2 Supremes it became clear to me
> that we should in fact go further the other way and merge Diana Ross &
> The Supremes and just have The Supremes as the artist for all three
> periods.
>
> If someone else enters the edit I'd vote for it, but it might be best
> to establish some consensus first as it would be tricky to back out
> the change after it's made.
>
> dave
>
>
>  I don't know it for sure but there probably isn't an editor with as much
> Diana Ross / Supremes CD's/Lp's as we have (hundreds) and if there is we (or
> at least my girlfriend Helen) should know him.
>
>  Knowing this you can understand we have no problem in changing all the
> release by (Diana Ross &) the Supremes  to The Supremes. I can do it like
> this:
>
>  1 - Point all the name variations to the right artist (Diana Ross & The
> Supremes and The Temptations -> The Supremes and The Temptations)
>  2 - Rename all the release artists to "The Supremes"
>  3 - Add an annotation to the artist name as mentioned on the cover of the
> release
>  4 - On compilations give the track artists the right credits "Stop! In the
> Name of Love - The Supremes", "Some Day We'll Be Together - Diana Ross & The
> Supremes"
>  5 - Take a vacation

:) well for me if we're going to keep "Diana Ross & The Supremes" and
"The Supremes" separated (even if only at the track level) then we
might as well assign the attributed release artist to the right
release, rather than always use "The Supremes". I think they should be
merged *totally* (but again, we've been there and some don't like it).

Keeping all the releases on the release page is one thing, but it's
also the tagability that we have to consider. MP3 players and software
tend to be Artist-centric, so ideally we'd have what inhouse is
suggestion, akin to discogs ANV system (
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Supremes%2C+The ), AND the tagger could
use (based on user preference) the primary name all the time.