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[lalittle]

It's recently come to my attention that the online CD look-up has a propensity for having a couple songs on a single albums come up with different years and/or genres than the rest of the songs on that album.  Someone pointed this out to me recently, so I created a new library, checked some of my albums, and discovered that this does indeed seem to be the case.  Note that this is NOT just with "multiple artist" or compliation CD's -- this is with normal CDs from any given band.

I don't rip new albums that much anymore, so I never witnessed the change, but I can say that this is definitely an issue I didn't encounter that much back when I was ripping a lot of CDs for the first time.  I used to have to make some spelling corrections, possibly add the year, and change the genre, but I never saw so many albums come up with one or two songs on an album showing a different year or genre -- it seems to happen about 90% of the time.

It seems like either a glitch or a weird algorithm in the way the database stays current -- i.e. as new people submit new info, it gets integrated into the database in a manner that leads to "oddities" like this.

Does anyone have any feedback or information on this?

Thanks,

Larry

[KingSparta]

It's recently come to my attention that the online CD look-up has a propensity for having a couple songs on a single albums come up with different years and/or genres than the rest of the songs on that album.  Someone pointed this out to me recently, so I created a new library, checked some of my albums, and discovered that this does indeed seem to be the case.  Note that this is NOT just with "multiple artist" or compliation CD's -- this is with normal CDs from any given band.

I Am Not Sure if this is true

When editing the YADB listing during the FreeDB cleanup (first year of YADB) one Genre Was for the whole album.

[steveklein]

i don't think i know how to do the online cd lookup. album art, yes... but how do i go about capturing genres and years? is there a way to update genres and years without updating other things (like cover art, artist, title, album)

[John Gateley]

It's how the new voting works. Some songs appear on more than 1 CD, and will get the genre associated with the most popular CD. If you look up a less popular CD with that song, most of the songs will have the genre of the less popular CD and the one will have the genre of the most popular CD.

The best thing to do is to change it while the CD is in the drive. This will submit your vote for the correct genre, and eventually the best genre will win.

j

[lalittle]

It's how the new voting works.

Ah -- that explains it.

Some songs appear on more than 1 CD, and will get the genre associated with the most popular CD. If you look up a less popular CD with that song, most of the songs will have the genre of the less popular CD and the one will have the genre of the most popular CD.

Please forgive my bluntness here, but I see this approach as fundamentally flawed.  When I put a CD in the drive, I'm looking up the "CD," not the individual songs on that CD.  The standard logic has always been that the database is a "CD" database, not a "song" database.  I just doesn't make any sense to me to factor in songs from OTHER albums when giving the information about the CD I just inserted.  If another CD contains the same songs, it makes perfect sense to have new "votes" influence the information on the currently inserted CD, but doesn't it seem illogical to have the information for these songs influence OTHER CDs that are not currently in the drive?

The best thing to do is to change it while the CD is in the drive. This will submit your vote for the correct genre, and eventually the best genre will win.

But in my opinion, there shouldn't be a fight in the first place if it's a different CD in the drive -- information for a given CD should only effect the CD in the drive.  This is particularly problematic when the same band releases a different version of the same song on a different album (perhaps a live version, or maybe just a new mix on a "remastered" album.)  Under the current logic, votes for this new version will effect the songs on the original CD, quite literally making the information for the original CD incorrect even though NOBODY entered any incorrect information into the database.  This should NEVER be a possibility in my opinion.

I'm not advocating that only single genres or years be applied to a CD -- this would be a problem with compilation albums.  What I'm advocating is that "votes" are only applied to the CD that's currently in the drive rather than to other CDs containing the same songs.  I'm really interested in hearing other opinions on this because in my honest opinion, the new voting logic honestly isn't the best approach, and it's resulting in nearly EVERY CD I insert having at least "some" incorrect information.  I constantly see multiple years and genres on CDs, forcing me to to have to find out what the "real" date for this CD is.

Thanks for the information, and for any further feedback on this,

Larry

[rjm]

Please forgive my bluntness here, but I see this approach as fundamentally flawed.  When I put a CD in the drive, I'm looking up the "CD," not the individual songs on that CD.

A good example of this is a soundtrack album. In my opinion all songs on the album should have genre set to Soundtrack. Not pop, rock, etc. as they would appear on their source album.

[lalittle]

A good example of this is a soundtrack album. In my opinion all songs on the album should have genre set to Soundtrack. Not pop, rock, etc. as they would appear on their source album.

I agree with this, and this also makes an excellent example of the problem when looked at in reverse:  There are songs that exist on multiple soundtrack albums.  With the new voting system, the song on the original "source" album could get listed as "Soundtrack" even though not a single person thinks this should be the case.

Thanks,

Larry

[KingSparta]

In a perfect world each song should have there own genre.

[prod]

In a perfect world each song should have there own genre.

And in reality?

Generally with soundtrack albums listing multiple genres would muck up my views, so Soundtrack is king. With Greatest Hits albums sometimes I like to put different years in - for instance Rolling Stone's Paint It Black shouldn't have a year of 2004 just cos it was released for the umpteenth time that year. And then there's compilations - for instance a sixties compilation may contain Motown, Blues, R&B, Merseybeat, Rock, etc etc. I like to categorise those. I suppose it depends how you use your views in MC.

But submitting these little home based novelties to a shared database, and thereby forcing them on everyone else, is going a bit too far.

[John Gateley]

Please forgive my bluntness here, but I see this approach as fundamentally flawed.  When I put a CD in the drive, I'm looking up the "CD," not the individual songs on that CD.

When you correct a song title, that should affect both the song on the current CD and the song on any other CDs and the song as an individual track lookup. If you create a home burned CD with your own mix of songs and add it to YADB, they are still the same song.

A good example of this is a soundtrack album. In my opinion all songs on the album should have genre set to Soundtrack. Not pop, rock, etc. as they would appear on their source album.

I'd be interested in hearing other opinions. I think a song has a genre, it *is* blues or rock, whether it appears on a soundtrack album or an album I burned myself containing classical, tibetan and other music.

To put it differently: the genre of a song doesn't depend on the CD it is part of, it depends on the music.

But submitting these little home based novelties to a shared database, and thereby forcing them on everyone else, is going a bit too far.

But that's the whole point of the voting system. If it is what the majority is doing, that's what it should be. It's not forcing the tags on you, you are free to change them. It does represent the most popular choices.

j

[richard.e.morton]

When you correct a song title, that should affect both the song on the current CD and the song on any other CDs and the song as an individual track lookup. If you create a home burned CD with your own mix of songs and add it to YADB, they are still the same song.

I'd be interested in hearing other opinions. I think a song has a genre, it *is* blues or rock, whether it appears on a soundtrack album or an album I burned myself containing classical, tibetan and other music.

To put it differently: the genre of a song doesn't depend on the CD it is part of, it depends on the music.

But that's the whole point of the voting system. If it is what the majority is doing, that's what it should be. It's not forcing the tags on you, you are free to change them. It does represent the most popular choices.

j

ok, I agree in parts with all of you.!

Soundtrack albums should be Genre of the track. Updates to the track name should be to the track name, but this means that compilation albums _must_ have the artist in the artist field and the track name in the trackname field, which in reality doesn't happen and no other database does it htis way that I have seen, as no others that I have seen support different artists for a single cd, so the method employed wont work as you can't change the masses in this way, they are just not well informed enough to split out the artist from track in compilation cd's

However, Cover art, different regions have different cover art, just look at Stroke Is This It on amazon.com and amazon.co.uk

I have painstakingly gone through half my collection (still working on it) to correct the cover art, but if I submit it it is counted as a single vote, just like someone, who right clicks on their entire collection clicks get cover art from internet if missing, then clicks on it all again and submits coverart. Are these votes really equal?

So basically I think the voting system is a good idea, but needs more work.

Rich

[steveklein]

this may be asking for a bit much and i'm not sure how it would be implemented (it'd probably be a little buggy, but then again, the database of tags already is!)

how about an option where we can set exactly what we want to grab off the net? as much or as little tag info as possible. furthermore, why not allow us to specify if we want "song" "album" or "artist" mode when it comes to genre? if you select song, it attempts to find a separate genre for each song (i'd hate this), album mode would pick the best genre for the album and apply it across the board, while artist mode would classify all an artists songs and albums into one genre. this might be oversimplifying things for some people, but i actually prefer this. i just like knowing that my entire discography of pantera is labeled as "metal" i don't want to sort out what's rock, what's metal, what's speed metal, thrash metal, hard rock, etc.

just an idea!

[rjm]

how about an option where we can set exactly what we want to grab off the net? as much or as little tag info as possible. furthermore, why not allow us to specify if we want "song" "album" or "artist" mode when it comes to genre? if you select song, it attempts to find a separate genre for each song (i'd hate this), album mode would pick the best genre for the album and apply it across the board, while artist mode would classify all an artists songs and albums into one genre. this might be oversimplifying things for some people, but i actually prefer this. i just like knowing that my entire discography of pantera is labeled as "metal" i don't want to sort out what's rock, what's metal, what's speed metal, thrash metal, hard rock, etc.

just an idea!

This is a good idea. I don't think we will ever find a solution that satisifies everyone. My workflow for years has been to do an initial lookup of basic info like Artist, Album, Name but then I always do a manual check against my existing collection to ensure
- I am spelling Artist in a consistent manner (eg. Starship vs. Jefferson Starship, Beatles, The vs. The Beatles)
- I am using a consistent genre for the Artist (eg. is Joni Mitchell Folk or Pop)
I also check All Music Guide to
- ensure Year makes sense
- get artwork so I maintain a consistent and small size for imbedding

I'd rather have consistency within my own libaray than consistency with every one else. It is consistency that makes a tool like MC really useful.

Just my $0.02...

[lalittle]

When you correct a song title, that should affect both the song on the current CD and the song on any other CDs and the song as an individual track lookup. If you create a home burned CD with your own mix of songs and add it to YADB, they are still the same song.

So if a certain song is used in three film soundtracks that get enough votes, the original source CD should list this song as "Soundtrack"?  What about if a song is more "popular" as a remastered version in 2007 than the original was in 1982?  Should the original song on the original album be listed as "2007" even though everybody agrees that this song should be 1982?  The problem with the new system is that you can literally end up with incorrect listings for songs even though NOBODY ever entered incorrect information into the database.  You can also end up with listings that literally nobody agrees with.  The voting logic is "flawed" since this is exactly what it allows.  In both the examples I just gave, the resulting database information is "wrong" by everybody's standards -- i.e. nobody wants the genre of the song on the "original" album to be "soundtrack," and nobody wants the year of the "original" song on the 1982 CD to be "2007."

Doesn't this argument make sense?  The new system is leading to downright "incorrect" info for songs on some CDs.  Shouldn't votes ONLY apply to the CD that is currently inserted?  It's a "CD lookup" database.  I have no argument for allowing songs on any given album be more than one genre or year, but this should ONLY happen when people vote for the songs on THAT CD to be so, and not be influenced by other songs NOT on that CD.

Add to this the idea that you can have one song done in more than one "way" by the same band -- for example, a slow, acoustic version of a normally faster, "rock," song, etc.  Tagging these as different "genres" makes sense in this case.  Tagging an old song with the year of a later release, on the other had, makes absolutely no sense at all.  If the votes for a song on one CD effect the listing for a song on another CD, the logic fails.

Thanks again for the feedback,

Larry

[John Gateley]

Hi Larry,

You argument does make sense, but is based on a different definition of "song". You are choosing a much finer grained distinction for song than I. The tradeoff is how often your cases are a nuisance versus how often the same track appears multiple times (with possibly multiple incorrect spellings) in the database. I've chosen the latter, for now. Give it a while, see how it works (it's actually been in place for several months now and today's the first complaint).

j

[richard.e.morton]

Hi John,

As I've said before I have been cleaning my tags and coverart. I have been finding many albums which have been ripped recently and the album isn't being kept because the album tags for some of the tracks of an album have different values (robbie williams - greatest hits for one track, and just greatest hits for the rest), I am guessing this is maybe caused by this voting system???

Rich

[lalittle]

Hi Larry,

You argument does make sense, but is based on a different definition of "song". You are choosing a much finer grained distinction for song than I. The tradeoff is how often your cases are a nuisance versus how often the same track appears multiple times (with possibly multiple incorrect spellings) in the database.

I keep coming back to a single crucial point, which is that this isn't about it being a "nuisance" -- it's about the database quite literally containing incorrect data.  A song on a CD from 1982 is suddenly listed as "2007" just because a live album or re-mastered version of the song is released later.  A single song on an album is suddenly listed as "Soundtrack" just because this song appears on a soundtrack a decade later.  It's really ironic that the new system allows for this "incorrect" data to exist in the database even though NO "incorrect" data was ever entered into it.  The people who entered "2007" for a live album were CORRECT to enter this -- this IS the date of the album.  Does ANYBODY really want this new data to change the date of this song on the original album?  Does ANYBODY want a single song from an album to be listed as "Soundtrack" just because it was used on a soundtrack?  I honestly confused how the decision to have it work this way was made -- I'm not trying to be critical of other opinions, I just don't understand the argument for this approach.

You are choosing a much finer grained distinction for song than I.

Actually, I'm just bothered that it has become a "song-centric" database instead of a "CD-centric" database, which defeats the purpose of a system used to look up "CD" information.

I've chosen the latter, for now. Give it a while, see how it works (it's actually been in place for several months now and today's the first complaint).

Thanks for considering the possibility of changing it.  The current approach simply doesn't work in my opinion since it allows incorrect information to exist in the database.  The reason I personally haven't complained until now is simply because I've hardly done any new album ripping over the past several months, so I never had the opportunity to notice it.  I believe that this is most likely the reason other people here haven't complained, along with the fact that many people probably don't realize that this is something that can be changed.

Thanks again for any feeback on this from other users,

Larry

[KingSparta]

A song on a CD from 1982 is suddenly listed as "2007" just because a live album or re-mastered version

Yes, this would be a problem With Years, And I Agree.

The Genre Is Another Story.

[lalittle]

Yes, this would be a problem With Years, And I Agree.

The Genre Is Another Story.

Thanks for the feedback.

I don't understand how the genre is a different story.  The same logic applies -- i.e. just because a song is a certain genre on one album, that does not necessarily mean that EVERY occurrence of this song (even from the same artist) fits that genre.  Many people use genres that by definition will not apply to every version of a song.  For example, "soundtrack" is a very popular genre used by many people.  If a Peter Gabriel song is used in a soundtrack, does it make sense that this song should be listed as "soundtrack" on the original album as well?  What about bands that do a different rendition of one of their songs -- i.e. a slow, acoustic version of a rock song, for example.  People that want to tag this new version as "acoustic" or "live" will suddenly effect the original song on the original album, which is neither "acoustic" nor "live," and which NOBODY tagged as such.

I'm sincerely confused by the concept of the new voting system.  Why do people want to have a "CD" database based on "song-centric" logic?  It's no longer a "CD" database in this case -- it's a "song" database, which doesn't make sense given that the database is specifically used to look up "CD" info.  The new system assumes that a song is a song -- i.e. that there is no such thing as "Jazz" or "Country" version of what was originally a "Rock" song, or that the genre "Soundtrack" should either retroactively apply to earlier versions of a song, or that it should not be used at all.  This just seems utterly wrong to me.

I appreciate the discussion -- thanks again for the feedback,

Larry

[rjm]

Shania Twain's Up! album comes in a country version and a pop version. Same song list, just different mixes.

[Alex B]

I too am confused. Isn't the CD database completely separate from the individual song database anymore?

In the CD database each CD should have individual ID and if there's a "voting system" (instead of listing multiple versions of the CD) it should work only under an invidual ID.

For example, a remastered CD released in 2007, which has slightly different track lenghts and possibly revised track names, should be a fully separate item from the first generation CD pressing that was released in the 80's because the CD ID is different.

[steveklein]

...right... but i think most people woud rather the year of the original release be displayed.

[John Gateley]

I too am confused. Isn't the CD database completely separate from the individual song database anymore?

In the CD database each CD should have individual ID and if there's a "voting system" (instead of listing multiple versions of the CD) it should work only under an invidual ID.

No, they are now merged into a single database. Less duplication of data and more efficient correction.

If I do what you suggest (each CD is a single ID), this affects many CDs which are released in the U.S. and Europe with slightly different track listings, or the many CDs which come in different pressings with slightly different lengths. Instead of being able to share the data (and improvements) among these, they would all be unique and move towards correctness slower.

Larry - incorrect data is a fact of life in the database, whether it comes from a song having two different years or genres, or whether it comes from relying solely on user supplied data. It's not a question of "which is correct and which is incorrect", it's a question of "how can I get the most accurate data in the majority of the cases".

Thanks for the input y'all, I'll look at this when I can...

j

[lalittle]

If I do what you suggest (each CD is a single ID), this affects many CDs which are released in the U.S. and Europe with slightly different track listings, or the many CDs which come in different pressings with slightly different lengths. Instead of being able to share the data (and improvements) among these, they would all be unique and move towards correctness slower.

My "experience" is the opposite -- i.e. that this new system has rapidly resulted in frequent errors where there were less before.  This is why I posted in the first place -- I saw a lot of incorrect data.  I see a LOT of albums where, for example, the year of a couple songs on a 1980 album are listed as 2001 and 2003.  This just wouldn't happen with the old system, where the dates were correct pretty much every time.

Larry - incorrect data is a fact of life in the database, whether it comes from a song having two different years or genres, or whether it comes from relying solely on user supplied data.

But what bothers me is that this "incorrect data" is now happening even if everybody enters "correct" information, which I think is a sign that the paradigm could work better with a different approach as far as "accuracy" is concerned ("efficiency" is, of course, another issue, but I am not famliar with that arena.)  In other words, it's perfectly reasonable for people to put "soundtrack" on a soundtrack album, but having this song change to "soundtrack" on the ORIGINAL album is not something that anyone wants.

Thanks for the input y'all, I'll look at this when I can...

Thanks John.  I really appreciate your feedback here.

Larry

[richard.e.morton]

thanks for considering our views John and I look forward to a new and improved system.

I have just completed going thorugh my entire collection and updatin tags etc, a task that's taken somewhere close to 5 days solid (I must have too much time)...

I would love to contribute this back into the database, but at the moment I don't see the point, so please do tell us when you have had a chance to have a look at it...

Thanks

Richard