Style / Recording
| Status: This is an official style guideline. |
Contents |
Title
See the title guidelines for how to enter the recording's title.
Artist
The artist should usually be the same as the first release of the recording.
What should and shouldn't be merged together?
A recording is intended to represent unique audio. This means you:
- should normally merge recordings with the same ISRC.
- shouldn't normally merge recordings with different ISRCs.
- shouldn't merge different performances (which includes re-recordings, live versions and versions with different lyrics)
- shouldn't merge different recordings of a performance (e.g. a live bootleg recorded by multiple people)
- shouldn't merge different edits, mixes, remixes or remasters of a performance.
- shouldn't merge recordings which have conflicting relationships.
ISRCs
An ISRC should, in theory, correspond to a single recording in MusicBrainz and a recording should correspond to a single ISRC. However, in practice, mistakes are sometimes made. In such cases, annotations are recommended.
Specific types of recordings
Live recordings
For live recordings, enter the song name as the recording title and "live" as the recording disambiguation comment. If the date and/or location is known, this should also be added to the disambiguation comment following the same format as used on live bootlegs.
- Examples
- Train in Vain (live, 1998-12-14: Telewest Arena, Newcastle, UK)
- Wake Up (live, Los Angeles, CA, USA)
- The Dance (live, 2002)
- Candle in the Wind (single edit) (live)