[x] audible contribution vs. every album ever

I'm going to combine a few threads here and close others. It might be time to decide what our priorities are here at b2b. Do we want to limit our universe to music only? (And if we do, how do we define / limit that?) Or do we want to take an "every album ever" approach to inclusion?

There are many issues to ponder:

properly credited albums with no audible material:
[bandtoband.com] http://bandtoband.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1040 (conductors)
[bandtoband.com] http://bandtoband.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4722 (Hot Lixx Hulahan's air guitar release)

manipulation of audible material:
[bandtoband.com] http://bandtoband.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=747 (releases by DJs)
[bandtoband.com] http://bandtoband.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5873 (manipulations of sound effects)

non-music audible material:
[bandtoband.com] http://bandtoband.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3344 (comedy, movies, spoken word)
[bandtoband.com] http://bandtoband.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5242 (instructional videos)

For the little that it's worth - my take:

Conductors. No. They don't play - therefore, whatever their role, it's not one we recognise. Max Webster went as far as crediting lyricist Pye Dubois as a member. There are doubtless other similar lyricists, dancers, light men (I think Nektar may have had that one as a member) etc who are part of the broader entity - but not as we record it.

Hulahan / John Cage. No music = no entry.

Releases by DJs. I'm just about prepared to concede that scratching a record is part of a musical performance. However, to simply play some records and have that 'performance' recorded isn't. So case-by-case I think. But anything that had no new music in it (ie consisted entirely of playing / scratching other people's records) would not qualify for me.

Sound effects. Don't get me started.

Non-musical releases. No. Simply not music.

Instructional videos. Yes. The intention is to release music by an artist. I would accept that if an instructional video consisted entirely of such small snippets that no piece was a 'song' or piece in itself then that could fail some test or other, but almost all these have enough playing and named / numbered pieces that I believe the artist has released something, even if almost inadvertently so.

Are we any closer to making a decision on whether spoken word gets in?

I raise the issue again because I've just queued a bunch of Jello Biafra's collabs with D.O.A., No Means No and The Melvins, and (as far as I can tell) all his solo work prior to these collabs was spoken word. Does that mean these collabs should have gone in as bands?

For what it's worth, I see no reason to exclude spoken word - it certainly has more hallmarks of traditional performance than instructional videos.

Is there really that big a difference between Jello ranting about war with no musical backing (and releasing it under his own name), and Jello ranting about war with a band behind him (and releasing it under a band name)?

Sorry, I made live the Jello Biafra half of the collab w/ D.O.A. before reading the discussion here.

I think that spoken word albums should be recognized as solo releases for b2b purposes (and I know that Kevin does too), so I think that we have handled the Jello Biafra release correctly. Obviously there are reasonable arguments for and against inclusion, but I see them as intentional audible releases.

Hot Lixx Hulahan is currently in the live database, which is not in line with the approach we have taken so far. I would not mind an "every album ever" rule that would allow single-member non-audible-contribution albums to come in under the reasoning that 1) the albums do exist; 2) it would be nice to be able to document them; and 3) single-member albums do not create connectivity with other artists.

For instructional releases, I find some of AJW's arguments compelling (see [www.bandtoband.com] http://www.bandtoband.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5242 ), but I have another issue that I think we should consider. One thing I don't like about the Dave Lombardo "solo" instructional release is that it is really a book with a supplemental CD: [www.amazon.com] http://www.amazon.com/Power-Grooves-Dave-Lombardo/dp/0793588499 . The book is the primary item and there is no way to separately obtain / purchase the CD that we are considering. As far as I know, we have never allowed an entry for an item (e.g. a book) that cannot include audible recordings.

Of course one could argue that the Book+CD combination includes an audible recording, but under that logic KISS could sell a "KISS Kar" customized automobile that came with a CD instruction manual featuring Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley explaining the various features of the car. Would we document that?

We have at least one entry where the CD was integral to a book - I can't remember it now but it was a CD from the low countries with a cover that looked like a map. Why would we look to exclude a properly released, documented recording on the grounds that we don't like how it was packaged?

Are all non-musical releases now valid or do we now rely on one person's definition of entertainment over another's? Recorded sports broadcasts, ceremonies of state, audio books, non-musical instructional cassettes? Any / all of these valid?

I fully agree that spoken word should get in - I'll work on expanding Jello and Henry Rollins' discographies accordingly.

As for books with CDs - we allow CDs/flexidiscs etc that come free with magazines, and it could be argued that in this case, too, the magazine "is the primay item and there is no way to separately obtain / purchase the CD".

I don't have a problem with what are generally referred to as "spoken word" recordings (though I'm a bit iffy on comedy). I do have a problem with books on tape/CD, though, so maybe I need to work out what the difference is before I jump off that particular cliff.

I think discriminating by packaging is silly. If it only came with a book/magazine/car, so what? (This was not an exclusive, but it's an entertaining story anyways: [jawkdna.com] http://jawkdna.com/blog/?p=11 )

I'm against instructional content. I've gone over that before. :-) I'm also against sample discs and sound effects. I'm OK with DJ mixes and artists who make music primarily with samples of other music.

I'm against movies or videogames unless it can be shown that the content is intended to be a song performed by the artist in the context of that medium. So a song that is part of the score or background of a movie/videogame would not count, but if there were a band performing the song in the movie/videogame, then that would count. (Or something like that. We can hash these things out in the forums for exceptional cases.)

Scrap my comments about packaging--you all raised good points.

To address the question of non-music audible material, we offer a new version of Rule 3, also known as the "I Know It When I See It" rule. This one is perhaps the most blatantly subjective rule so far, but we hope it captures the essence of what we're all trying to accomplish here. We too felt iffy about spoken comedy performances, but not enough to exclude them (there already are, and have been for quite some time, a few comedy entries in the database).

Using the proposed rule 3 as a guide, we intend to exclude sports broadcasts, interviews, and ceremonies of state (if we were actually presented with candidate entries) and probably include books on tape in many circumstances (perhaps a more concrete rule could be developed later). This rule most likely would allow instructional material, despite AJW's good points.

Thoughts?

i'm pretty impressed by that earlier "KISS Kar" example.

Aidan John Moffat's singing bottle-opener is now live.
[www.bandtoband.com] http://www.bandtoband.com/band/aidan-john-moffat/the-little-beer-song

BRING BACK HOT LIXX HULAHAN!!!

i did my best but that Hot Lixx entry got pulled down pretty quickly. if only he had coughed during the "recording session", we could've pinned an audible contribution on him...