Music Producers Guild - Blog - Weekly Debate - Credit Where Credit is due ...

posted almost 2 years ago by natureboy

In the dust, or strictly for royalty accounting purposes. Unless, however, you design the digital booklets similar to an album sleeve.

posted almost 2 years ago by gonzolagonda

My biggest engineering success was uncredited on the record! And I pretty much stopped reading album credits when they went all tiny on CD sleeves... Perhaps we should think about who we want to know what. Trainspotters can arguably search credits and info on allmusic.com, Wikipedia or similar, but wouldn't it be great if we could interest more people in what we do as producers and engineers?

I think it would be to our benefit if digital tech 'pushed' credits a bit more towards the listener, so that our efforts as producers and engineers were better appreciated.

I think it might be worth discussing to see if MPG could work to persuade Spotify and Apple (iTunes) and/or labels to make credits pop up while the track is playing, or at least pop up a button labelled 'track credits, click here for more info' or similar. Would some lobbying be worthwhile? What chance of success is there likely to be? Is it too late to get this implemented? Would anyone be bothered to assemble and compile the metadata? Do other members think this would be a useful campaign to mount?

posted almost 2 years ago by teepee

It is quite ironic isn't it that as technology has become more capable of supporting a better way of collating and storing all the information required for everything from stack control to royalty entitlement in one place there seems to be a greater fragmentation of it? The more cynical amongst us might conclude that the labels like it that way - the more confusion the easier it is to defer payment.

I think it is significant the effort that PPL has been making to reverse this situation and MPG are very pleased to be discussing ways to consolodate this further.

Beyond that however, the biggest mistake that has been made since CDs were introduced and carried forward into downloads has been to underestimate the value of sleeve notes and extra information to go with the music that is purchased. Credits are of course part of that.

posted almost 2 years ago by TommyD

I disagree about All music, Wiki and Discogs. The information is wildly erratic and totally inaccurate. Anyone can input data. I know this because i just went to search for my own work and a lot of it is missing. At least credits were an accurate and often contractually obligated guarantee of who did what. Theres a bigger picture which is the way credits gave a human aspect to a musical or technological thing. Knowing that Tony Thompson played drums on the Chic records or Geoff Emerick was the engineer on the Beatles records gave budding producers like myself something to watch out for and a slight oneupmanship on ones mates, bit like TopTrumps. Credits along with artwork made music more human, more connectable. I see the loss of credit information as jus another nail in the eradication of respect from the industry towards the people that actually make the product its selling. George i agree if we could interest the digital music pioneers to start incorporating more meta data that would be a start

posted almost 2 years ago by mickglossop

Credits must be included in the metadata of digital music files! At the very least, it provides recognition of the work of the people involved, which is extremely important, and is an insult if neglected. I don't know of any other creative endeavour where the contributors are un-recognised - just look at the list of credits displayed at the end of every movie these days.

Credits also serve as accurate records for the calculation of royalty payments due to those entitled to them.

As stated above, Allmusic, Wiki, Discogs, and AlbumCredits can be inaccurate, and anyway, the source should be the producer of the record, not some random fan or any other badly informed sources. The producer is the only person on the session who knows exactly who did what.

posted almost 2 years ago by natureboy

I think the lack of credits has shifted the mindset of songwriter/band to create, what I call, a vanity project, instead of art. They know that the final product will have there name in big letters on the front of the artwork so , all of a sudden, they are the only ones that matter in the project. What I am getting at is it goes deeper than what the consumer thinks when they have purchased the album online. It affects the entire process from start to finish. It is definitely affecting us on a subconscious level.

posted almost 2 years ago by TommyD

Thats an excellent comment Natureboy and one I was trying to allude to in my previous comment. As Mick says every other creative endeavour takes great pains in crediting all the creative members involved yet our very own industry has over night forgotten how important on so many levels this is and like so many other aspects let it slip by the wayside. How can we expect anybody to respect the work we do if we do not respect it ourselves by not demanding that we be credited directly?

posted almost 2 years ago by Gareth Jones

I am with Mick - credit where credit is due please. Also I love to know as much detail as possible about the recordings that I love. So, for me, extensive credits enhance the overall experience (and the value for money).

posted almost 2 years ago by teepee

An interesting thread to this is emerging. I have always contended that music in general is essentially a social activity and making music benefits greatly from collaborative efforts. Although most of us don't actively seek recognition for what we do as our primary motivation, it is only human nature to feel better about what we do and therefore perform better, if at the very least we are acknowledged. Of course the "fame led" culture that has grown up around reality TV shows has done little to encourage collaborative music making because the actual talent is difficult to identify!

posted almost 2 years ago by tony cousins

Quite logical and correct that all credits should be included in the metadata of a CD, however are you aware that if one requires track titles etc to appear as a readout on a player that the production cost is nominally higher because the copyright is owned by Sony for this facility. Apart from the problem of the cast of thousands involved in making CD's, the print is barely legible anyway which makes it less enjoyable to read and to find the information one requires. Last year I mastered a record where the engineer sent me a mail showing the face of the CD because it was full of the so called 'producers' of the record. So called because they had insisted on their credit being there when in fact they had had virtually nothing to do with it, in other words they were record company executives wanting their names to be seen on a CD by well know artists. The engineer was not mentioned, neither was I.

posted almost 2 years ago by testvocalbooth

Is this Sony-owned facility the only method for including meta-data?

posted almost 2 years ago by mickglossop

Tommy D's recent "Viewpoint" article in Music Week (March 6 2010) has been syndicated and is accessible to all here:

http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/yb/142088149?

posted almost 2 years ago by Mike Hillier

Mick Glossop has asked me to copy and paste my recent blog post (from http://www.mikehillier.me/Mike_Hillier/Blog/Entries/2010/3/6_Credit_Crunch.html), so I will. But first I'd like to address Tony Cousins' point. Credits as CD text aren't as important as the metadata on an mp3/AAC/etc is, since presumably if you've got the CD you've also got the booklet that comes with it. (Copy from blog begins here) As a teenager in the 90s I used to enjoy flicking through the CD booklet as I listened to the album. I’d make a point of reading all the lyrics if they were provided, I’d pay close attention to who had written all of the songs, who had played on each song and who recorded it and where it was recorded. I even liked reading through the thank-you’s and trying to see if I recognised any names, or instrument manufacturers from the lists. Many people might think this information is useless, but I devoured it. I loved spotting guest appearances, or discovering that one of my favourite songs was a cover, and I’d make an effort to hear the original. So when Kula Shaker released a cover of “Hush”, I was that saddo at school pointing out to everyone that it wasn’t a Deep Purple cover, but had been written and recorded originally by Joe South - and I knew that South had performed on Blonde On Blonde (yes, I was always a geek). When Ocean Colour Scene released “Moseley Shoals” I loved knowing that it was a nod to the Muscle Shoals recording studio. I got a little thrill seeing the name Ben Hillier (no relation, but I still felt proud) as assistant engineer (on an early Blur CD I think), and again when I started seeing his name as engineer (Graham Coxon’s Golden D) and then producer (Think Tank). I absorbed this stuff so much that when I first heard Kaiser Chief’s on the radio while in the Music Tech office my first comment was that it sounded like Blur and was probably recorded by Stephen Street - something that for a short while sparked producer interviews in Music Tech, including one with Stephen Street about his recordings with Kaiser Chiefs. Now as a recording engineer myself I am proud of every credit I receive, just as I am with every byline I get in Music Tech Magazine. I want people to know who I’ve worked with, even if it is frequently only as Assistant Engineer. And I still want to know who worked on the albums that I buy, and what albums the engineers and producers I work with have worked on before. The iTunes revolution however has pretty much killed this off, yet it would be incredibly easy for distributors to add credits as metadata to the files. I’ve moaned about this to friends for ages, arguing for some kind of definitive online database with credits and it now seems I’m not alone. The UK Music Producers Guild recently blogged about the lack of credits in digital deliveries, which provoked a considerable response and will hopefully provide a rallying point for musicians, engineers, producers, song-writers, studio owners, and even the person whose cover art it is. We need to convince the big digital distributors to start including this as metadata on downloads. Mike Hillier