[BatterPudding]

Some thoughts and waffle from me as someone who would like to see all the possible dates visible somewhere. And I've also spent a couple of years understanding some of the madness logic that is behind MB and its ideas. I also have a bit of a weird collection of music.

A suggestion: Add NEW fields to the database to handle these dates. If there are THREE fields in the database to store a date per release then most people may get happy. The data will then be there for a skin to pull out as it wants. And the fields can be populated from both the files and online resources.


DATE as currently stored (can't change old fields to do new work as this upsets all those who have already found a solution. Like the example of using a script to edit all the digital files in Picard. Also this will be used by 90% of people who don't really care about these details.)

RELEASE-DATE - release as per MB for this specific edition of this album
ORIGINAL-DATE - original date that this album first hit the shelves

An option in KODI to allow the user to choose if they want ORIGINAL or RELEASE dates by default displayed.

Then KODI can read this data from the files for each release.  Fill in the two different boxes above.

Depending on User choice one or the other gets copied to that DATE entry for the more simple skins.

Many files will only have one or maybe neither of these dates. So lookups online will be needed. Trouble is neither MusicBrainz nor Discogs are perfect at getting original release dates so there needs to be the ability for a user to edit this value for themselves.


Would be good to have it as a Sort By option on any of the skins. Using these choice of dates...


But the rabbit hole doesn't stop there...

And now it is about to get VERY confusing - Compilation disks like "Hits of the 80s" or Elvis Presley's Greatest Hits" means every single SONG on that release has a different ORIGINAL-DATE to be stored for it.  So once the minefield is entered of "Original Dates" for an album, that will be requested at a song level too for compilations.

There are also the "Box set" compilations. Things like the huge Discovery Box Set from Pink Floyd with all the separate albums in one box currently appears in KODI as a SINGLE item with just the one date. It would be nice to have the ability to browse through that "box" in KODI as separate releases and see those separate dates for each of the sub disks... Ah. Whoops. There is another headache combo - a single MB Release where each DISC has its own ORIGINAL-DATE.

Yeah - this is messy

Ah - now thinking about the above, what happens when you get Deluxe 30th Anniversary release where the Original CD is accompanied by Extra CDs with Demos, Singles, and other extras? What is the "Original" date there of those CDs? CD1 was "originally released" 30 years earlier. But CD2 and CD3 were released on the 30th anniversary... but they are full of songs with all kinds of dates.

-=-=-

I can come up with plenty more curve balls for this one.


Yes, I am the kind of loony who wants to have access to all kinds of dates. I have about a dozen copies of Dark Side of the Moon. So I do want to know when my different CD editions were really released. I know there are noticeable track differences between the different editions, so I need to be able to keep them apart. Later re-issues of albums by many artists have extra tracks tagged on the end making them a very different thing to listen to.  MBIDs being in my files help that a lot to keep these separated.

Before Dave started his Musical Mission I would go to select Dark Side Of The Moon in my collection and would not be able to play it as KODI would show ALL of the same copies mashed into one folder with all the tracks doubled\tripled up...  Dave you have already made my music saner and more accessible thanks to MBIDs.

Right - that's enough waffle from me....

[scott967]

Well, as I understand it, there is a "release date" which is at the release level (eg album) and I guess within a "release group" there is a date of the "first release".

Meanwhile, at the track level there is an associated recording which can have a date (though I don't know how accessible that is).  In the MB usage, the recording exists after the source audio is mixed, remixed, or edited, but before mastering.  So your "Dark side of the moon" albums have tracks sourced from different recordings.  I suppose the date of the recording is the date it was released as one or more tracks.  If the recording was remastered for release on a different medium, or shuffled into a compilation, the recording date should be the same, though the release dates would vary.

scott s.
.

[BatterPudding]

Well, as I understand it, there is a "release date" which is at the release level (eg album) and I guess within a "release group" there is a date of the "first release".

Yeah - and this is where the database is relying on someone having uploaded that original release. A "Release Group" holds all the different editions of that albums "Releases": Vinyl, CD, Digital Media, etc. BUT if the only edition listed is a re-release CD then that is the date that would be returned. There is no current way of attaching a "Real" release date to the Release Group.

More original releases are uploaded at Discogs as they are selling their albums so have many more of the old ones in place. MusicBrainz can be very hit and miss with this - it depends if a fan has been into that section and cleaned up. Some sections are brilliant - others strangely lacking. The data for MB has grown from freedb and uploading CD details through programs like Picard. This means a lot of vinyl is missing unless someone has manually entered it (or used a script to import it from places like Discogs)

Meanwhile, at the track level there is an associated recording which can have a date

And these dates are very rarely filled in. And have no place in file tags at the moment. Yes, MB lets you go down from TRACK to RECORDING which should have a date. That recording would be common to re-releases, etc. Trouble is the dates are rarely known or filled in for recording level. It is relying on us users to sit with a copy of the CD paperwork and fill in all those details by hand. Research online for more details. So again some artist are very well covered, others don't even have the recording entered.

This is one of the troubles. People ask for "earliest date" or "release date" but online resources are patchy. This is why there needs to be some way to enter a chosen date into KODI directly. Some way to override and correct the data KODI holds after all its scrapes online. If a date can be entered to the database via the GUI then it allows "corrections" to be made without having to learn your way around the whole MB process.

An interesting link that can often be mined is the Wikidata links that tend to sit on most Release Groups at MB. When available, these tend to be a little bit more reliable to request that Release Date.

Some of the trouble is that both Discogs and MusicBrainz are for cataloguing the separate pieces of media. Whereas KODI wants access to a database that catalogue album releases.

TL;DR - make the year in KODI user editable. Allow the user to override the value held with their own setting through the KODI GUI.

[scott967]

For my personal use, "original date" would mainly be of interest for things like covers, live performances, music videos and the like rather than reissues on different media.  So I wouldn't be getting from discogs, allmusic, MB etc as I don't think they support that idea at all.  I guess for the 45s era to link albums back to 45s.

scott s.
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[gibxxi]

Apologies if this, or something similar has already been suggested...

For those who want to force the issue (as I have done) as I like to see my albums listed by "artist" in chronological order (i.e: original release dates) I used this in the "Scripting" section of MB Picard...
 

Code:

$if(%originaldate%,$set(date,%originaldate%))

Obviously this only works if the "original date" field / value has been submitted, and as previously suggested, it does somewhat rely on the validity of the submitted info, but then, the same rule applies for pretty much all MB content. Also, it means running through your library yet again, but may be a solution for those who only want to see the original release dates in Kodi, rather than the release date of the specific album edition they own, until a more elegant solution can be put into Kodi itself..

Dan / Gib.

[steve1977]

I am using below in Picard scripting. It always works!

$set(date,$if2(%originaldate%,%date%))

[dm21912]

I am using below in Picard scripting. It always works!

$set(date,$if2(%originaldate%,%date%))

to expand on this, if you add the extra line in front to move date to "releasedate" you have the actual release date preserved. obviously thats a tag that nothing uses, but it preserves that information in the tag so you can script it back if you need to

$set(releasedate,$if2(%date%,%releasedate%))
$set(date,$if2(%originaldate%,%date%))