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I wish they somehow merged. It's unnecessary and a bit ridiculous that music nerds would need to update information in two places.

by pcf 6y ago

microtherion 6y ago
As a contributor to yet another music database (SecondHandSongs), let me offer the opposite perspective: Information propagation is good IF AND ONLY IF the information was correct in the first place. But it's a big problem how much incorrect information already exists in music databases (including copyright databases, which make a living off providing supposedly correct information), and blindly copying information between sources propagates such errors. Preserving the diversity of sources, and only judiciously updating information, at least gives a chance of evolving toward a more correct representation of the world. Discogs, for instance, seems fairly accurate for release dates (Something that e.g. AllMusic can't be trusted for at all). And discogs is a wonderful source for photos of album front and back covers and record labels, which by definition are first hand evidence (even if they themselves not infrequently contain errors). Information on e.g. track composers is unreliable, and musician and label information is sometimes a mess (multiple entries per musician, inconsistent attribution of releases to label / country sublabels, musician / band). All of this is hard to avoid in a huge database like this. I have not worked with Musicbrainz as a source, but it does not have a reputation as being particularly reliable.
- aeontech 6y ago
  > I have not worked with Musicbrainz as a source, but it does not have a reputation as being particularly reliable. This seems like a roundabout way of saying it has a reputation for being unreliable? Do you mind clarifying? I know there's certainly issues of completeness, as with any user-compiled library of data, but I haven't heard charges of unreliability levied against it before.
  - microtherion 6y ago
    I admit that I'm guilty of pretty much what I accused those music databases of — passing along unvetted secondhand information... But let me try: An ideal data source has a traceable provenience to a reputable authority. E.g. https://iswcnet.cisac.org https://iswcnet.cisac.org is in the business of establishing songwriting royalties. The Discography of American Historical Recordings https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/basic/search https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/basic/search has very sound scholarship behind it and documents their sources (usually ledgers kept by the recording studios). The Encylopedic Discography of Cuban Music https://latinpop.fiu.edu/discography.html https://latinpop.fiu.edu/discography.html seems to be compiled mostly by one scholar, but he seems to have an incredibly detailed knowledge of the field. Musicbrainz, in contrast, is a crowdsourced collection that is a mile wide and an inch deep. Within literally seconds I found a bogus artist entry: https://musicbrainz.org/artist/729f9e2f-c993-40b6-ae20-bd21b24c4402 https://musicbrainz.org/artist/729f9e2f-c993-40b6-ae20-bd21b... I'm willing to bet that the the last album shown for James Carter is not by him: https://musicbrainz.org/artist/a8880ecc-10d8-4492-b17e-02715d160b56 https://musicbrainz.org/artist/a8880ecc-10d8-4492-b17e-02715... This one has a typo in 13, and 12 is completely wrong: https://musicbrainz.org/release/81c40619-26b9-421a-906a-4ef054b9c6c0 https://musicbrainz.org/release/81c40619-26b9-421a-906a-4ef0... And all of this is just a few random checks. To be sure, the sheer volume is not without value to start a search (Quantity has a quality of its own, as they say), but it should probably not be taken as a sole source of authority without a backup source, and one would have to be careful that the backup source did not, in turn, take musicbrainz as its source.
    - aeontech 6y ago
      Your examples are fair, but allow me to offer a counterpoint. Your argument seems to verge on absolutism, as in "if it's not perfect, it is worthless", which makes me feel like it's a little dismissive of the value that musicbrainz has managed to build. I'd like to argue that most if not all data collections like this, including Discogs, Musicbrainz, web stores like iTunes or Google Music or Amazon are always going to have some data quality issues. It's the nature of the beast. I've seen data quality errors even in Apple Music and Spotify, where you'd think they have vetted data from labels directly. MB has not one scholar but thousands of enthusiasts contributing to it. Some are very methodical and provide source links with each edit (creating, as you say, traceable provenance to a reputable authority). Some are newcomers and just throw data in, and need to be educated on how to do it better. The great thing about MB is the powerful data model, and the UI that makes it possible both to fix the invalid data, and to trace the history of the edits, with links to the sources used for the changes. The other great thing is that it has, so far at least, somehow managed to elude most of the attention of vandals and trolls that plague places like Wikipedia. It feels like most if not all contributors to the site act in good faith to their best knowledge (lacking though their research skills may sometimes be), and when their submissions are lacking, they are easily improved. Finally, I do agree with your ultimate statement - none of these data sources should be taken as the sole source of authority.

I wish they somehow merged. It's unnecessary and a bit ridiculous that music nerds would need to update information in two places.

by pcf 6y ago

I wish they somehow merged. It's unnecessary and a bit ridiculous that music nerds would need to update information in two places.

microtherion 6y ago

As a contributor to yet another music database (SecondHandSongs), let me offer the opposite perspective: Information propagation is good IF AND ONLY IF the information was correct in the first place. But it's a big problem how much incorrect information already exists in music databases (including copyright databases, which make a living off providing supposedly correct information), and blindly copying information between sources propagates such errors. Preserving the diversity of sources, and only judiciously updating information, at least gives a chance of evolving toward a more correct representation of the world. Discogs, for instance, seems fairly accurate for release dates (Something that e.g. AllMusic can't be trusted for at all). And discogs is a wonderful source for photos of album front and back covers and record labels, which by definition are first hand evidence (even if they themselves not infrequently contain errors). Information on e.g. track composers is unreliable, and musician and label information is sometimes a mess (multiple entries per musician, inconsistent attribution of releases to label / country sublabels, musician / band). All of this is hard to avoid in a huge database like this. I have not worked with Musicbrainz as a source, but it does not have a reputation as being particularly reliable.

aeontech 6y ago
> I have not worked with Musicbrainz as a source, but it does not have a reputation as being particularly reliable. This seems like a roundabout way of saying it has a reputation for being unreliable? Do you mind clarifying? I know there's certainly issues of completeness, as with any user-compiled library of data, but I haven't heard charges of unreliability levied against it before.
- microtherion 6y ago
  I admit that I'm guilty of pretty much what I accused those music databases of — passing along unvetted secondhand information... But let me try: An ideal data source has a traceable provenience to a reputable authority. E.g. https://iswcnet.cisac.org https://iswcnet.cisac.org is in the business of establishing songwriting royalties. The Discography of American Historical Recordings https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/basic/search https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/basic/search has very sound scholarship behind it and documents their sources (usually ledgers kept by the recording studios). The Encylopedic Discography of Cuban Music https://latinpop.fiu.edu/discography.html https://latinpop.fiu.edu/discography.html seems to be compiled mostly by one scholar, but he seems to have an incredibly detailed knowledge of the field. Musicbrainz, in contrast, is a crowdsourced collection that is a mile wide and an inch deep. Within literally seconds I found a bogus artist entry: https://musicbrainz.org/artist/729f9e2f-c993-40b6-ae20-bd21b24c4402 https://musicbrainz.org/artist/729f9e2f-c993-40b6-ae20-bd21b... I'm willing to bet that the the last album shown for James Carter is not by him: https://musicbrainz.org/artist/a8880ecc-10d8-4492-b17e-02715d160b56 https://musicbrainz.org/artist/a8880ecc-10d8-4492-b17e-02715... This one has a typo in 13, and 12 is completely wrong: https://musicbrainz.org/release/81c40619-26b9-421a-906a-4ef054b9c6c0 https://musicbrainz.org/release/81c40619-26b9-421a-906a-4ef0... And all of this is just a few random checks. To be sure, the sheer volume is not without value to start a search (Quantity has a quality of its own, as they say), but it should probably not be taken as a sole source of authority without a backup source, and one would have to be careful that the backup source did not, in turn, take musicbrainz as its source.
  - aeontech 6y ago
    Your examples are fair, but allow me to offer a counterpoint. Your argument seems to verge on absolutism, as in "if it's not perfect, it is worthless", which makes me feel like it's a little dismissive of the value that musicbrainz has managed to build. I'd like to argue that most if not all data collections like this, including Discogs, Musicbrainz, web stores like iTunes or Google Music or Amazon are always going to have some data quality issues. It's the nature of the beast. I've seen data quality errors even in Apple Music and Spotify, where you'd think they have vetted data from labels directly. MB has not one scholar but thousands of enthusiasts contributing to it. Some are very methodical and provide source links with each edit (creating, as you say, traceable provenance to a reputable authority). Some are newcomers and just throw data in, and need to be educated on how to do it better. The great thing about MB is the powerful data model, and the UI that makes it possible both to fix the invalid data, and to trace the history of the edits, with links to the sources used for the changes. The other great thing is that it has, so far at least, somehow managed to elude most of the attention of vandals and trolls that plague places like Wikipedia. It feels like most if not all contributors to the site act in good faith to their best knowledge (lacking though their research skills may sometimes be), and when their submissions are lacking, they are easily improved. Finally, I do agree with your ultimate statement - none of these data sources should be taken as the sole source of authority.