[vorbis] TAG Standard - ENSEMBLE/PERFORMER tags

[Jared Sulem]

I've read through what I think is the entire thread and looked at the
standard in its current incarnation
(https://reactor-core.org/~djw/ogg-tags.txt).  I have only one major problem
with the proposed standard at the moment.  The existance of both PERFORMER
and ENSEMBLE tags.  I think this is describing the same type of data
(ENSEMBLE = thing that performed the music, PERFORMER = thing that performed
the music), except ENSEMBLE carries extra information that the data is a
kind of plural.

I don't see that the need for this extra information about the data
justifiying the extra time and energy on the part of the user, or the
increased complexity in logic needed for vorbis players.  If the user does
know something about the performer/ensemble of the music they listen to they
will most likely already know whether they are a group of people.  Otherwise
I do not see how this information on its own is of particular interest to
most people.

I suggest depreciating ENSEMBLE, and use only PERFORMER.

A more useful tag may be BAND or GROUP (I think there may be a better name
for this) which holds the identifier the people went under, to perform the
piece of music.  This should be a singleton so that users (programs and
people) immediately know where to look to easily find/display concise
information on the performer(s) of the music and don't have to worry about
which information is important (is that a minor backing vocalist or the main
singer in that PERFORMER tag?) and how to display the important information.
Examples of use:

"U2 and REM" (after all this is the identifier for the group of people that
have performed "One" together)
"Delerium"
"London Symphony Orchestra".

If someone felt they needed to store more information they could place the
names of the members of U2 and REM and/or "U2" and "REM" in the PERFORMER
tag.

An ambiguous and hard to use tag scheme will only confuse and complicate
matters, and therefore it is important that the scheme works in the majority
of usage by 'normal' people.  Otherwise it is less useful and even more
confusing than previous schemes.  IMHO it is better to use a slightly more
obvious tag scheme where the data is easily placed in the correct place,
rather than place data in the incorrect place, which invalidates the data
because of the context (especially over such a small issue).  With the
ensemble/performer set of tags I think you may find people do not respect
ensemble/performer definitions and will end up using one by default on all
their pieces of music.


----

Hmmm.. I think I just suggested something that is the same as the normal
usage of 'ARTIST' in rock/pop/etc. music.
<grins> Maybe the proposed GROUP (or BAND) tag should be called ARTIST
But with the strict, proposed definition of course.
But that would mean ARTIST would be a misnomer.
Maybe it should not be called ARTIST then.

Jared Sulem

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