[x] Two queries

1. The band Le Roux reissued their 1983 album in 2000. They added an extra track 'Somewhere in America'. This recording featured a different lead singer, Terry Brock, who was not overtly credited as a member. On research it turns out that this recording had previously been released as being by a band called Network (which also featured two of the genuine Le Roux members) on a soundtrack. However Network are not mentioned on this 2000 Le Roux CD. What to make of that? Is this Network (released by Le Roux) even though the CD only mentions 1 band throughout - Le Roux? Have Le Roux co-opted this song and made it one of their own and, if so, have they retrospectively made Brock a member?
2. Lynyrd Skynyrd's First (The Muscle Shoals album). This was recorded over 5 years with various overdub sessions on the 1971 demos taking place as late as 1976 and various line-ups played to the stage where some tracks have 'members' (all members of LS at some point) who were never in the band at the same time. Is time linear? Does a LS line-up that features both Rickey Medlocke (left 1971) and Ed King (did his dubs 1975) exist even though they never worked together?
Views?

(1) If it's actually the identical recording that was previously released, then yes, it's Network, not Le Roux. Not giving proper credit to another band whose work you release does not make the lineup of that other band a lineup for your band.

(2) I think lineups are defined by who played together, not whose work appears composited into various tracks. Let's say three different lineups play together in reality:
Bob, Joe, Jim
Bob, Jeff, Jim
Frank, Jeff, George
Individually, all these lineups' members record bits of tracks that are all composited together into a final result. I think the resulting album has the above lineups as three separate lineups on it, rather than a single lineup as follows:
Bob, Joe, Jim, Jeff, Frank, George
...even though that sextet is, collectively, what's responsible for each of the tracks on the resulting album.
Of course, with some albums and some groups, this may have happened but we don't know it, and we credit a "lineup" that never really played together, because all the members in question contributed to the album. But for cases where the history is more well-known, such as your case, I think you should document reality rather than mash everything together based on the resulting album tracks.

... by Barclay James Harvest:

Woolly was in London doing something-or-other and all the rest of the band were in Manchester doing something-or-other else, and it appears that their contributions to the album were entirely separate. However, they still consider the album is by the complete band.

And what about Floyd's "Ummagumma" - the second half was the individual members working on solo projects. Do we separately document this as five separate "lineups"? Part of me says, I don't believe we should, as it adds extra unnecessary complications, but another part of me demands that we "document reality" as closely as possible.

Well it also depends on whether people have actually "joined/left" the band or if they just "aren't with" the band.

So if one of your members records all his parts in a studio in America while everyone else works together in Australia, that's not two separate lineups just because the members aren't playing in the same room -- they're still all members. (In fact I've submitted several albums already where the members lived in separate places and collaborated online to produce the final album). That situation is distinct from if someone actually leaves the band. For example, on dc Talk's "Solo" (I believe that's the right title, from memory), all the members of dc Talk had just split up to do solo projects, and each project contributed a single -- then all the singles were released together with "dc Talk" on the CD front. But that's not a dc Talk record, that's a compilation of solo tracks, and I'd enter it in the db as multiple separate releases, one by each solo project.

The Floyd situation looks a little stranger to me; I'm not really familiar with their history so I have no idea what the "right answer" is.

The powers-that-be have taken the strange decision to credit the 4 solo Kiss albums as Kiss albums ... despite the fact there's a clue in the later compilation 'Best of Solo Albums' ....

Yeah, I'm not sure I agree with that decision. Mark/Kevin, want to explain? I know it says "Kiss" on the cover art, but I could release an album with "Kiss" on it too, and that wouldn't make it Kiss...

As I said once upon a time ( [bandtoband.com] http://bandtoband.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=122 ),

--

First, a note on the Kiss "solo" albums... They have always been considered Kiss albums by the fans and, more importantly, the band. In every interview in which Gene or Paul says, "Kiss has _x_ albums," the solo albums are always counted. Several of the songs appear on best-of compilations and at various times the band has performed the tunes live. Additionally, the band's promotional material always includes the albums. Really, they're considered to be Kiss albums on which one band member played with non-Kiss musicians, not pure solo albums.

--

This is not my decision--this is the way Kiss has always treated those albums. See, for example:
[members.kissonline.net] http://members.kissonline.net/faq/discography/2.html

Sure, there's a compilation called "Best Of Solo Albums" (which, I should note, was never released in the band's homeland and is not counted as part of the regular run of official albums), and, sure, everyone calls them solo albums, but if you have the records and look at the center labels, artwork, and title information, you will see that each is a Kiss album with the band member's name as the title. That's also the way all of the Casablanca's promotional material from the 1970s advertised them.

The so-called solo albums were all released on September 18, 1978, with sequential catalog numbers and each one shipped platinum, which, at the time, was a mind-boggling accomplishment. Each album was dedicated to the three other members of the band and each came with a specially-cut poster that interlocked with the other three posters to form one big mural. The record sleeves for each album were identical: a display of all 4 album covers.

And, this seems so obvious but I'll say it anyway, nobody but Kiss is allowed to market the Kiss trademarks, logo, or makeup.

I still think it's a marketing stunt and the albums really are solo projects, and that if the band considers them "Kiss" records it's due to either a desire to help each member capitalize on the "Kiss" name or else a logic-free sense of solidarity in supporting each others' projects. But if that's really the band's position, then it's not worth the trouble to argue the point, so I'll concede that those solo albums are allowed to call themselves "Kiss" albums as long as they don't list any of the non-perfroming members of Kiss as members on the album -- which they don't. (But be careful if you ever turn the site operations over to me, because those four albums will instantly become solo projects marked "(released by Kiss)". That's what I think makes sense.)

It really is a hybrid situation. At the time, Kiss was the biggest band on the planet and had just toured Japan, breaking all the old audience records set by the Beatles. The band was in the middle of filming the "Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park" movie, which, it was assumed, would make the band zillions of dollars more.

Ace and Peter got carried away with the band's success and wanted to go solo, thinking they'd be respected and loved as solo artists. Gene and Paul couldn't let that happen, so they came up with this compromise in which each album would be a Kiss album recorded like a solo album.

Maybe I should have explained that important part of Kisstory right off the bat.