Artist vs. Album Artist

[ParagonOpus1]

Are there industry standards for hierarchy in selecting which performer is considered Artist vs. the Album Artist and how does it shift in accordance to genre?

For example, if we were talking about Beethoven's Violin Concerto, who is considered the Artist in this album (real album) where the performers are:?
Composer: Beethoven, Ludwig van
Soloist: Itzhak Perlman
Conductor: Carlo Maria Giulini
Orchestra: Philharmonia Orchestra

It literally could be considered any one of these and I often have to do a search on any of these performing tags to find stuff. So, I'm wondering if there is an industry standard here? And how does that intertwine with like Pop. If you go over to like a Michael Jackson cd, they you pretty much don't need any of those tags. You can consider him all of the above, unless you go dig deep and find the track composer, if his band backup has as ensemble name and doubtfully uses a conductor, which are rarely listed on the cd in the first place. But, even in that case, is Jackson considered the 'artist' or the 'album artist', or both?

The reason I ask is that, if artist and album artist are not done consistently, then sorting on them has no significance. For example, often a classical music CD will have two major works on it, say, a Brahms symphony and a Dvorak symphony. So, now, if you set the artist to the composer, then a search (sort) will bring up a piece that is labeled incorrectly 1 of the two times, but if you label the artist at the conductor, then both those two symphonies are not searchable (through sort), basically. Therein lies the difficulty. 

(side note - does the forum have a way to see when a specific thread has a response?)

[hiccup]

Are there industry standards for hierarchy in selecting which performer is considered Artist vs. the Album Artist and how does it shift in accordance to genre?

No.

For digital music managment software, the main purpose of 'Album Artist' is to make it possible to group tracks that have the same 'album title' and 'album artist' together and present them as an 'album'.

In my opinion the concept of 'album artist' differs a lot between popular music and classical music.
For popular music it is usually very simple. The album artist will be a band, a solo artist, or 'various artists'.

Classical music is a completely different animal.
Bach never composed a work so that it could be released as an album.
None of the classical composers did that.
If you look at physical classical cd/lp releases you will see that often something like an 'album artist' is not even mentioned/printed.

My own system for classical music is that I pretty much completely ignore any 'album artist' and 'album title' that a database or a record company is using/pushing.
My 'album artists' will depend on what I feel defines the 'work' as a whole the best.

Sometimes it will be <composer> - <conductor>
Sometimes it will be <composer> - <ensemble>
Sometimes it will be only the <ensemble> (Kronos Quartet)
Sometimes it will be only the <conductor> (Wilhelm Furtwängler box sets)
Sometimes it will be only the main performer. (Sviatoslav Richter)

I am using anything that I feel makes the most sense, and I am ignoring anything that is used for physical releases such as lp's and cd's, or digital releases. I don't care much about what they say.

(side note - does the forum have a way to see when a specific thread has a response?)

Yes, click the 'Notify' button at the top.

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

@vincentkars has a great website The Well-Tempered Computer for thinking through one's digital music management process. He also has a number of useful posts here on the board related to classical music tag management. Searching through @hiccup's will also glean a ton of useful thought exercises, as well. For implementing things that aren't exactly obvious, @redwing's posts are best to sort through. Another thing I did when I got serious about setting up MusicBee was go through all the screenshots other users have posted. Great resource for ideas.

Are there industry standards for hierarchy in selecting which performer is considered Artist vs. the Album Artist and how does it shift in accordance to genre?

Not really, but a lot of digital music software developers have taken Apple's basic standards (which are loosely based on ID3) and expanded upon them. Right now, the most comprehensive set of guidelines for music tagging comes from MusicBrainz.

Composer: Beethoven, Ludwig van
Soloist: Itzhak Perlman
Conductor: Carlo Maria Giulini
Orchestra: Philharmonia Orchestra

MusicBrainz would dictate the above tags as...

Code

composer:Ludwig van Beethoven
conductor:Carlo Maria Guilini
performer:Itzhak Perlman (concertmaster) or Itzhak Perlman (violin)
performer:Philarmonia Orchestra (orchestra)

...and MusicBee is able to recognize all of them as such. Furthermore, assuming the album is question is this one...

Code

artist:Ludwig van Beethoven
album artist:Itzhak Perlman

I follow the above, except I put orchestras and choirs in a Custom Tag.

[ParagonOpus1]

I would give you both a thumbs up for your responses if I knew how to do that Needless to say, thanks. So, I will have to decide on if I want to add tags, etc., and will have to relook at music brainz.

[phred]

I will have to decide on if I want to add tags, etc.

You stated in another thread that the main reason you wanted to use MB was for music management. Understand that without proper tags, the managing of your music will be difficult and more than likely a mess.

[psychoadept]

Yes, click the 'Notify' button at the top.

This will get you email notifications. The filter menu at the top of the forum (next to search box) also offers a few ways to look for new posts. I rely almost exclusively on All Unread Topics, but then I'm keeping an eye on the whole forum and not just specific threads.

Not really, but a lot of digital music software developers have taken Apple's basic standards (which are loosely based on ID3) and expanded upon them. Right now, the most comprehensive set of guidelines for music tagging comes from MusicBrainz.

Yes, MusicBee and Musicbrainz can both handle the Work/Movement tags which I think started with iTunes. I appreciate how much work has gone into standardizing classical music tagging at MusicBrainz. You're most likely to get good, consistent tags there but there's always more in the database than the dedicated editors can keep cleaned up.

My only complaint with it is that MusicBrainz has decided (by consensus) that the Artist should always be the composer, and I prefer the artist to be the performer and/or conductor (although there are a few cases where that info isn't available). I keep meaning to see if I can do some scripting in Picard to improve my classical tagging in that regard but I haven't gotten there yet.

[hiccup]

My only complaint with it is that MusicBrainz has decided (by consensus) that the Artist should always be the composer, and I prefer the artist to be the performer and/or conductor (although there are a few cases where that info isn't available).

Considering that 'Artist' is obviously a concept that is impossible to define, I think it is good (and the best thing that can be done) to at least try to be consistent. Both for databases, software, and how an end-user manages his stuff himself.
So even if only for the purpose of consistency I do support whatever MusicBrainz has decided on this.
I may not agree with everything they are doing (some awful social politics on their forum), but being the database nerds that they are (the ones calling the coding shots), being consistent seems important and valued there.

Both Picard (plugins and scripts) and MusicBee (custom and virtual tags) should provide ample possibilities and solutions to anyone not being satisfied with generic implementations.

[phred]

(side note - does the forum have a way to see when a specific thread has a response?)

In addition to clicking 'notify' in each thread you wish to be notified about, you can set all threads and replies in which you are a participant by going to your profile settings: