mjb wrote:

Not covered in previous discussion or (until I added it today) the wiki was setting up a guideline for the use of "Untitled" or the artist's name on albums with no title.

Here's an uncomplicated example: http://www.discogs.com/history?release=103525#latest

But there are more difficult examples, such as the Peter Gabriel and Led Zeppelin early releases:
http://www.discogs.com/groups/topic/150425
Consensus was never reached.

Previous attempts to raise the issue in the forums were fruitless:
http://www.discogs.com/help/forums/topic/125853
http://www.discogs.com/help/forums/topic/147883

99% of the time I believe most vendors and collectors would consider such an album to be self-titled, so I'm inclined to insist that "Untitled" be avoided. What do others think?

Mop66 wrote:

Maybe it would an idea if we could add sort a 2nd and maybe even third title to such releases (comparable to an ANV: RNV = Release Name Variation). There would be a main title then and a secondary/tertiary title addtionally in the sense of "This release is also referred to as:".

Example:

Led Zeppelin - Untitled
also known as: Led Zeppelin - IV

Or

Invisible Man's Band - Invisible Man's Band
also known as: Invisible Man's Band - Untitled; Invisible Man's Band - Self Titled

In this way a inexperienced user of the DB could also find them easier when searching if he does not know the exact title. I guess most people will search for led Zeppelin "IV" instead of " Untitled".

DS_Helder wrote:

avoid untitled. use artist name as title. that is how it har always been done in discographies.

nik wrote:

I would be happy to have the rule avoid 'Untitled' if possible, I think we must refer to external examples in such cases.

I don't think we can have a variation field for this (it would in fact lead to a variation field for every field!), but perhaps a guideline stating a method of writing an alternate title as part of the title would be acceptable and workable?

Regarding the guidelines in general, I think we should start the 'stage 4' guideline review soon, with an eye to getting all these types of issues resolved - perhaps in the next couple of weeks we can start this officially.

Mop66 wrote:

I remember that there were some heavy discussions about "Untitled" vs. "Whatever Title" in some cases and the discussion in the forums went just back and forth without a clear decision. Couldn't we just open a poll for such debates about rules for a limited timeframe and just use the outcome as a decision. That would prevent the topic from being unresolved for a long period of time (though no guarantee that it never pops up again )

Mop66 wrote:

But sometimes the artist name is not what the release is commonly referred to.

marcelrecords wrote:

Indeed (like: White Album by Beatles, The)
This belongs in the notes imo.

DS_Helder wrote:

no polls please. i would rather Nik came up with a rule I disagreed in, than changing practice due to who votes. as long as it is not one of those "whatever is written" rules. commonly known as, those belongs to the notes.

BigTone wrote:

Seconded. (also usually done this way in record company catalogs.., though occassinally listed as something generic like "7-song EP" which is not on the release itself.)
But definitely avoid "Untitled".

Mop66 wrote:

I did not mean having a poll on each and every release in question. I meant a poll about the general rule to follow (just to make that clear, if wrongly understood).



They might also use "Same" as title very often. So, you see there are a lot of variations and a general rule would help prevent the unnecessary discussions. Maybe we can just set up a rule that forbids artists & labels to issue releases without a distinct title ;) .

nik wrote:

I think that is the best way, make labels submit their future release to Discogs so we can tell them what they are doing wrong :-)

Seriously, though, I am up for a firmer guideline for this. So we need to cover:

* Avoid the use of 'Untitled' where possible.

* When to use artist name

* When to use 'common name' (Led Zeppelin - IV etc)

housefly88 wrote:

It would be nice to have a "common name" option feild. There are a number of releases which are refered to, or even known as something other than the printed title.