[x] Band name translation

When the Sugarcubes released their second album, "Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week," they issued a limited edition version of the album with the vocals recorded entirely in Icelandic. This was released by their UK record company in the UK as "Illur Arfur!" Pretty clearly, this would qualify as another album, no problem there.

However, they also translated the band name into Icelandic as well, Sykurmolarnir. In general, I don't think this would qualify as a Rule 5 change, because the band didn't really change their name, and the release doesn't really fall into rule 5a (translation could be considered a trivial transformation) or 5b (it was not changed to satisfy a foreign market).

However, this also isn't like where they use the transliterated name of the band on a Japanese obi-strip but keep the main artwork intact, or even include both the band name and translation on the artwork: there is no mention of the Sugarcubes anywhere on the release.

Another possibly relevant piece of data: Before they signed to One Little Indian in the UK and released anything under the name The Sugarcubes, they had released a recording under the name Sykurmolarnir in Iceland.

So, is Sykurmolarnir another band? I would lean towards no, but it's not clear to me that the rules prohibit this being a new band, either. It would be nice if it were explicitly stated.

I'd say it's a new band.

There are already several bands on this site where multiple different band entries correspond to the same band. Rainbow vs. Ritchie Blackmore's Rainboiw is one that comes to my mind, where it's not clear to me that the band is in any way "changing their name", but the releases have distinct-enough-looking names that we go ahead and use two entries for them.

I have long sort of wanted the idea of a "band as separate from its name", that is, a concept of a band itself, which could have multiple names over time, just as I've wanted the same for artists (so they could have different real names at different points, due to marriage or whatever). However, for now, I'd just go ahead and make this a different band entry.

Could we have real name||known as for bands as well? The only use of it I can think of is where the band's home tongue is used (like here) but in some non-home releases is in (usually) English. I see no merit in generating a non-rela entity. If there really is a total literal translation correlation between the home & foreign names - can't we treat it as a 'stage name'?

I'm with PK. For now, we haven't implemented the band-name aliasing that MP suggested, and it's pretty clear that even if it's not a new band, it is a distinct band name, especially given that the two releases you mentioned (the recording from Iceland and the "Illur Arfur!" album) are not available under the Sugarcubes name. That's enough to distinguish this from a Yaz||Yazoo situation.

Other bands have been known to record under two names:
Sonic Youth -> Ciccone Youth
Rites Of Spring -> Happy Go Licky

So go ahead with Sykurmolarnir.

Fear Factory released a song on a Pessimiser comp under the name "Factoria de Miedo". I know there has been discussion about bands getting different names in different countries, but Fear Factory and Pessimiser are both products of Los Angeles.

Would this temporary name change qualify as a new band or as a band alias?

[www.inmusicwetrust.com] http://www.inmusicwetrust.com/articles/09p06.html

I think it would be a new band name. The material is only available by a band with the name Factoria de Miedo, so we might as well recognize that.

The song "Sangre de Niños" that Factoria de Miedo released on Cry Now, Cry Later #2 is probably the same version that Fear Factory recorded in 1991 that remained unreleased (officially, using the FF name) until 2002.

[en.wikipedia.org] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_%28album%29

According to the wiki, it is the same track, but how trustworthy does BandToBand consider Wikipedia? To be honest, I'm not a big FF fan and I don't own Concrete, so I can't easily compare the two. If the tracks are the same, would this be a simple name change/translation?