[Playlist] Track ambiguation

[Chris Anderson]

Hey all,

I'm new to the list here - I've been using XSPF for some time now
(originally for Music For Dozens, and now with my work on Grabb.it )
and I've finally found this list. So far every post that has come down
the pipe has spoken to exactly the sorts of things we've been
struggling with as we model Grabb.it's metadata domain.

The service we'd like to provide is something similar to to Paul's
playlist resolver. Eg. We'd like to take a user supplied playlist and
resolve it into one for which we can locate playable entities. If the
user supplied metadata is high-quality enough, it is easy to find
MBIDs for list items, which correspond to individual releases of
particular tracks.

What we'd like to do is go one step further. We assume our users don't
care about the difference between all the different releases of a
given track, as long as the track is basically the same - eg. Iggy
Pop's "Lust for Life" in original release, or on any one of the many
compilations it was later re-released on, should be ambiguated into
one Track (or MetaTrack ...) so we have the highest chance of finding
a playable entity related to the requesetd track.

It's not as easy as matching only on Artist and Title, because we
don't want to end up with say, the Unplugged version of the track, if
we can help it.

So with that background, my question is - Is there any provision in
the MusicBrainz system to say that two Tracks *may as well be the
same* (from the perspective of the casual listener)? If not, is this a
good candidate for an AdvancedRelationship?

Let me know if this is better taken to another list.

Thanks for any feedback!
Chris

-- 
Chris Anderson
http://jchris.mfdz.com