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Animated Blood & Comic Mischief
Aug. 13th, 2010 11:28 amI may not be ultra-obsessive over it, but I do generally try to keep my music files tagged properly. I've got over 30,000 of them, after all, so it helps mightily in keeping track of them. But, of course, the question of "properly" is not as straightforward as it seems. I've been MusicBrainz for a few years now, because it's quasi-authoritative, but you can change it--not instantly as on a wiki, but with the chance for others to vote on your edits. (I confess that I rarely vote myself, so I don't know how many people actually do, but it seems to keep idiots at bay.) They have a nice tool (which started out as a crappy tool, but is much better now) called Picard, which can be used to tag files based on the database.
Mostly it's straightforward. Artist, song title, and album tend to be easy. There are often several versions of an album, though; a lot of 80's albums in particular seem to have an American version and a British version, with different song sequences (sometimes just flipping side 1 and side 2), different tracks included, and sometimes completely different titles. I confess to being somewhat annoyed when the official CD release of the album is based on the British version, which is usually not the one I had on record or tape. But I've gotten used to that, mostly.
Where it gets less straightforward is when you move out of the realm of "rock", where the performer is more important then the composer. For classical music, of course, it is the composer that is generally more important. Generally, you want to know if it's Bach or Mozart who composed something, not whether it was Simone Dinnerstein or Glenn Gould who performed it. And I'm usually okay with that. The overly complicated names of some classical pieces can get annoying sometimes, but I can live with those too.
The problem is that there's a grey area in the middle, and it seems to occupy the territory of musical theatre. "Send In The Clowns", from "A Little Night Music", files under Stephen Sondheim. However, if you've ever heard the original Broadway cast recording, with Glynis Johns singing it, you can't help but think that any other version must be better. Because, let's face it, Glynis Johns can't sing. Still, I dislike it when the "artist" tag for a song is that of five different singers, so I'm willing to settle for the composer in lieu. For some reason, the classical standard is that the composer of the music gets the credit, while the composer of the lyrics doesn't, leading to oddities like "Gypsy" where the songs file under Jule Styne rather than Sondheim, who's just the lyricist.
Another problem is that sometimes you get overlap. What happens when Blondie covers a song from Camelot? Does it go under Blondie, or Frederick Loewe (Alan Jay Lerner, as a mere lyricist, being snubbed again)? I put it under Blondie. What if Sarah Brightman does an album of Broadway tunes? (It should go under Brightman, shouldn't it?) What if a trio of singers does a revue of Stephen Sondheim songs called "Side By Side By Sondheim"? (I guess that should go under Sondheim, even if it means that their version of "Send In The Clowns" files next to Glynis Johns's.)
As far as files go, it doesn't matter that much if there are two distinct versions with the same artist and title, since all right-thinking people with humongous collections file all their stuff into folders. I have one folder, "Assorted", for tracks by artists I don't have a full album of, and a "Sorted" folder which has songs by artist and by album. So under "Sinéad O'Connor" you'd find "My Special Child" in her root folder, and subfolders for the albums. I title my files by artist and song title, as in "Barenaked Ladies - Pinch Me.mp3", since I dislike those titles where they also include the album title and track number. I can keep track of those easily enough using extra columns in Windows Explorer, or in Winamp. The only annoyance is when an album contains two tracks with the exact same title, not qualified by "(Remix)" or anything, and those are rare.
But usually, when I listen to music, I "scrobble" it to last.fm, which keeps a running tally of my listening and does summaries. There, I find it mildly annoying that different versions, identically titled, file together, so nobody can tell whether the Spirit of the West song "Political" that I love is the one from the album "Labour Day" or the execrable evisceration of it that they did on "Go Figure". But I can live with it.
Last.fm also has the somewhat annoying feature where it will "fix" the song for you when it's scrobbled if it has a correction in its database. I find this highly vexing, because usually it's completely wrong. It's bad enough when somebody makes "The Bangles - Eternal Flame" scrobble as "Bangles" instead, trimming the "The". Or whoever it was who made all the tracks on Stan Ridgway's "Partyball" scrobble as "Stanley Q. Ridgeway". Or the people who somehow make the unadorned album track scrobble as "Live in London 06-18-96" or something. But when it's one of the ambiguous cases I mentioned above, and somebody decides to make what I consider the wrong choice, then it really bugs me.
Most recently, I was listening to a track from Yo-Yo Ma & Bobby McFerrin's album "Hush". Most of their selections there are classical, but I'd have to say that the collaboration between those two is more significant. In fact, in general I'd say that if it's different composers and the same artist over an album, you should go with the artist rather than the composer. And perhaps vice versa...but I don't want all the tracks on "Two Rooms" to scrobble as "Elton John & Bernie Taupin" (if Taupin doesn't just get shafted because he's merely the lyricist). So I was peeved when my McFerrin & Ma (Bobby & Yo-Yo?) track scrobbled as "Antonio Vivaldi".
I'd like to be able to opt out of last.fm's correction "feature" entirely. I can see that it might be useful for people who are careless taggers and scrobble things like "Welcome To The Jungel" by "Guns + Roses", but I'm a careful tagger, as I said. And I don't need second-guessing.
Mostly it's straightforward. Artist, song title, and album tend to be easy. There are often several versions of an album, though; a lot of 80's albums in particular seem to have an American version and a British version, with different song sequences (sometimes just flipping side 1 and side 2), different tracks included, and sometimes completely different titles. I confess to being somewhat annoyed when the official CD release of the album is based on the British version, which is usually not the one I had on record or tape. But I've gotten used to that, mostly.
Where it gets less straightforward is when you move out of the realm of "rock", where the performer is more important then the composer. For classical music, of course, it is the composer that is generally more important. Generally, you want to know if it's Bach or Mozart who composed something, not whether it was Simone Dinnerstein or Glenn Gould who performed it. And I'm usually okay with that. The overly complicated names of some classical pieces can get annoying sometimes, but I can live with those too.
The problem is that there's a grey area in the middle, and it seems to occupy the territory of musical theatre. "Send In The Clowns", from "A Little Night Music", files under Stephen Sondheim. However, if you've ever heard the original Broadway cast recording, with Glynis Johns singing it, you can't help but think that any other version must be better. Because, let's face it, Glynis Johns can't sing. Still, I dislike it when the "artist" tag for a song is that of five different singers, so I'm willing to settle for the composer in lieu. For some reason, the classical standard is that the composer of the music gets the credit, while the composer of the lyrics doesn't, leading to oddities like "Gypsy" where the songs file under Jule Styne rather than Sondheim, who's just the lyricist.
Another problem is that sometimes you get overlap. What happens when Blondie covers a song from Camelot? Does it go under Blondie, or Frederick Loewe (Alan Jay Lerner, as a mere lyricist, being snubbed again)? I put it under Blondie. What if Sarah Brightman does an album of Broadway tunes? (It should go under Brightman, shouldn't it?) What if a trio of singers does a revue of Stephen Sondheim songs called "Side By Side By Sondheim"? (I guess that should go under Sondheim, even if it means that their version of "Send In The Clowns" files next to Glynis Johns's.)
As far as files go, it doesn't matter that much if there are two distinct versions with the same artist and title, since all right-thinking people with humongous collections file all their stuff into folders. I have one folder, "Assorted", for tracks by artists I don't have a full album of, and a "Sorted" folder which has songs by artist and by album. So under "Sinéad O'Connor" you'd find "My Special Child" in her root folder, and subfolders for the albums. I title my files by artist and song title, as in "Barenaked Ladies - Pinch Me.mp3", since I dislike those titles where they also include the album title and track number. I can keep track of those easily enough using extra columns in Windows Explorer, or in Winamp. The only annoyance is when an album contains two tracks with the exact same title, not qualified by "(Remix)" or anything, and those are rare.
But usually, when I listen to music, I "scrobble" it to last.fm, which keeps a running tally of my listening and does summaries. There, I find it mildly annoying that different versions, identically titled, file together, so nobody can tell whether the Spirit of the West song "Political" that I love is the one from the album "Labour Day" or the execrable evisceration of it that they did on "Go Figure". But I can live with it.
Last.fm also has the somewhat annoying feature where it will "fix" the song for you when it's scrobbled if it has a correction in its database. I find this highly vexing, because usually it's completely wrong. It's bad enough when somebody makes "The Bangles - Eternal Flame" scrobble as "Bangles" instead, trimming the "The". Or whoever it was who made all the tracks on Stan Ridgway's "Partyball" scrobble as "Stanley Q. Ridgeway". Or the people who somehow make the unadorned album track scrobble as "Live in London 06-18-96" or something. But when it's one of the ambiguous cases I mentioned above, and somebody decides to make what I consider the wrong choice, then it really bugs me.
Most recently, I was listening to a track from Yo-Yo Ma & Bobby McFerrin's album "Hush". Most of their selections there are classical, but I'd have to say that the collaboration between those two is more significant. In fact, in general I'd say that if it's different composers and the same artist over an album, you should go with the artist rather than the composer. And perhaps vice versa...but I don't want all the tracks on "Two Rooms" to scrobble as "Elton John & Bernie Taupin" (if Taupin doesn't just get shafted because he's merely the lyricist). So I was peeved when my McFerrin & Ma (Bobby & Yo-Yo?) track scrobbled as "Antonio Vivaldi".
I'd like to be able to opt out of last.fm's correction "feature" entirely. I can see that it might be useful for people who are careless taggers and scrobble things like "Welcome To The Jungel" by "Guns + Roses", but I'm a careful tagger, as I said. And I don't need second-guessing.
