While the moderators take great heed of digital releases when reviewing if a submitted band should be included into MA, for those who are already in MA, it appears that rules of digital releases are much loose. Anyone can enter into the database a promotional single, a sampler, or a preview without a cover art, or with a cheaply photoshopped cover, from god-knows-where music portal. If you go to the
list of coverless releases, and sort by release year, you will see a swathe of singles and demos without cover art released in 2021. Most of these, I believe, should be purged.
Let's review the Rules. Site Rules --> Valid Albums Only --> Released and Distributed Albums Only --> Valid Digital Releases:
Official Distribution: You must show us where this album is hosted; acceptable distribution methods include any legitimate music portals that offer full downloads, be they global or more local (most prominently iTunes, Amazon, CDBaby, Bandcamp, Jamendo, etc.) or simply a link on the band's official website, Facebook or any other official and public channel.
Quality Download: the digital album must be available as a full high-quality download, preferably in lossless format.
Length of material: This requirement was later removed.
Fixed tracklist, Final mix, Cover artIn Oct 2020, policy on digital releases was updated. Now it allows certain stream-only albums on a
reputable distributor. It again stressed that unfinished work, teasers, samples are not acceptable.
I believe these rules SHOULD NOT only apply to singles when checking a band for entry, it should be the rule for all digital releases on this website.
Let me collect the keywords for the rules:
(1) Official distribution; (2) a legitimate music portal, full download or stream-only; (3) quality download (4) Fix tracklist, final fix; (5) (dedicated) cover art (not just two-min photoshop shit). Any digital release entry on MA that does not meet these requirements should be deleted.
But let us ask some more questions:
1. What is a legitimate music portal? Bandcamp, iTunes, no problem. But I really believe we should keep a list for all music portals that we deem legitimate. For a digital release to be included in MA, it must be on one of the legitimate portals in our list. If not, then don't add it, or one can submit the music portal into the list, to be determined by mods.
2. Stream-only sites: This is more delicate and definitely should be restricted. Azmodes' 2020-10-26 post mentioned that following sites: Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal and Deezer. I think temporarily we should just stay with these five. Adding a stream-only portal should be carefully examined by the mods.
3. Quality download - What if a digital album is only available as lossy mp3, not in lossless format? Should we add such release to MA? My opinion is "No". Example:
Salvaje > Yosemite-Abanic and Mariposa War, the album was uploaded to
NetEase Cloud Music on 2021-08-20, it has two problems: First, if you are a member of NetEase (which requires a fee), you can download the music, which are a bunch of mp3s; Second, the tracks were obviously abridged. They serve just like promotional samplers, that's why they call them the
Internet Version. This digital release should be deleted by all means. But the question is: Is Netease Cloud Music a legitimate portal?
My opinion: Music portals that don't require bands to provide lossless files should not be deemed legitimate. 4. A dedicated cover art is a must. A single accompanied by the full-length cover is not accepted. A digital release without a cover art, or with a "random" cover (e.g. put band logo as cover) is not accepted.
I also have some propositions for verifying digital releases. Currently, if one randomly adds a digital single, without further info, it might become quite difficult to actually locate it. Considering that we are living in 2021, with internet exploding, this is quite unacceptable. So I propose that the version description for digital releases to be like this:
Music portal | Hyperlink for the release | Verified?
Bandcamp |
http://bandcamp/......... |
iTunes |
http://iTunes/.............. |
When one submits a digital album, he needs to provide at least one source for that release, so that anyone interested can just click the link. If the info is correct, an experienced user can give a tick under "Verified?" column. Say, we can let the Metal Veterans and above (pts>=1000) do the verification job. Not challenging.
Doing this can also track the modification of some bandcamp pages. A band could release some individual singles, and then delete them all and combine them into an EP. If we keep the verification process well, we'll know for sure that the individual singles were indeed once there, that history cannot be simply deleted.
Please give me your opinions on this issue.Also, if the rules are finally set, it seems we are going to have some sourceless, coverless digital releases nuked.