Style / Titles

This page is a summary of the title formatting guidelines; please follow the links to the full guidelines governing specific situations for a more complete understanding.

When entering a new release into MusicBrainz, all titles should be normalized according to the following guidelines.

Part of: Language-specific style guidelines

Album and song titles are often rendered using only uppercase characters on the accompanying release packaging. For example, the album Songs of Love and Hate is written as “SONGS OF LOVE AND HATE” on the cover. For the sake of uniformity, we always regard this as merely a typesetting decision, as opposed to an intrinsic feature of the work from its creator. As a result, rather than copy the title verbatim from the packaging, we follow certain language-specific rules regarding if, when and how to capitalize them.

On MusicBrainz, additional information on a release or track name that is not part of its main title, but intended to distinguish it from different releases or tracks with the same main title (such as versions, remix names or live recording information), is referred to as extra title information (ETI) and should be entered after the main title, preceded by a single space and wrapped in parentheses  (). Featured artists should not be entered in this manner, but rather as part of the artist credits; for more information, see the featured artists style guidelines.

Titles and subtitles of mixes or versions are formatted according to the language-specific style guidelines, while all other constituent elements of this extra information should be in lower case, except for words that would normally be capitalised in that language. Recordings follow the same guidelines, with the exception of live performances, which are governed by different guidelines for either officially released live performances or bootleg recordings. Some examples of this are:

• Situations Like These (album version)
• Bear Witness (Automator's 2 Turntables and a Razorblade re-edit)

If a language requires the use of title case formatting or other non-standard capitalization rules (as English does), you may need to distinguish the title and descriptive components of the extra title information. The general capitalization practices in such instances are:

1. If the ETI contains no names or title elements, enter it all in lowercase.
2. If it contains a distinct title, use the language's customary title case formatting.
3. If it is a combination of title and descriptive elements, use lowercase for the descriptive part only; this often contains words like: mix, remix, live, remaster and edit, etc.

Examples of these guidelines in practice:

• Never Ending Story (power club vocal mix)
• The Age of Love (Watch Out for Stella club mix)

Instances of additional information that is neither part of the title or intended to distinguish the track from others like it should be removed whenever encountered. Common presentations of this are:

• Song (bonus track) or Song (new song) , both of which should just be Song
• Song (The Beatles cover) , which should also be just Song but also with a "recording of" relationship added (using the "cover" attribute) linking the recording to the appropriate The Beatles work.

A colon (:) is the preferred punctuation for separating any subtitles from the preceding primary title unless an alternate punctuation character—such as a question mark ? or exclamation point !—was used on the release, in which case that should be entered instead. Some examples:

• Biography: The Greatest Hits
• Who Cares a Lot? Greatest Hits (already has a question mark ?)
• Greatest Hits – Live Flash (already has an en dash –)

In the event that…

• A release is actually a re-release that combines multiple earlier releases
• A track includes two or more songs
• A split release has different titles for each artist

…the title should be formatted as Title 1 / Title 2, composed of both complete titles in sequence separated by a spaced slash or solidus ( /  or "space, slash, space"). For otherwise unnamed split releases, format them using Artist 1 / Artist 2 as the title, according to the same rubric. Likewise, the artist credit for tracks and recordings containing multiple songs by different artists, and for split releases and release groups should also follow this format as Artist 1 / Artist 2. Examples:

• This Is the Modern World / All Mod Cons by The Jam (two earlier releases combined as one)
• Outsider / 14:31 / 110 Mistakes by Burufunk / Global Communication / MOT (a track consisting of three songs)
• The Faith / Void by The Faith / Void (a split release)

Remember that this only applies to entities with multiple titles, and not single titles containing a slash (solidus) character, such as White Light/White Heat.

When a word such as “volume” (“vol.”) or “part” (“pt.”) is used in a title to indicate its position within a series (of releases, tracks, etc.), they should be separated from the title by a comma , and a single space ( ) unless another punctuation character—such as a question mark ? or an exclamation point !—is used on the release, in which case that should be entered instead. Here are some examples:

• Orchestral Songs, Volume 1 (“Volume” is capitalized according to English title case formatting)
• Sonates, vol. 3 (“vol.” in lowercase because the language is French)
• The Best Smooth Jazz… Ever! Vol. 4 (separated by “!” on the release)
• Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Parts I–V (“Parts” is capitalized according to English title case formatting)
• Authority? Pt. 2 (separated by “?” on the release)
• The Piano Works 3 (without a descriptor like “volume” or “part”, no separator is needed)

If a release includes a designation indicating its format/medium/packaging, such as:

• EP / E.P.
• 7"
• CD
• LP
• single

…as part of its title, include it in the release title. If a format designation is not explicitly part of the title, it should not be added. Here are examples of both cases:

• Flatline EP (EP is part of the title)
• Broken (EP is just the release group type, so it's not included in the title)

Release and release group titles shouldn't generally contain performers unless they are clearly part of the title, such as the performer including it when referring to the album, or the title seems "unfinished" without the performer's name. Some examples of this are:

• "The Best of Tangerine Dream", not just "The Best Of" (compare with "The Best")
• "Her Majesty the Decemberists", not just "Her Majesty" (per the performer's usage)
• "Plays Metallica by Four Cellos", not "Apocalyptica Plays Metallica by Four Cellos", even though the title seems unfinished because artist intent supersedes these guidelines.

Sometimes it isn’t clear how the guidelines for entity titles should be applied in a particular edge case, but as they are identified, those more narrowly-scoped guidelines will be found in this section. Currently, there is one such case:

MusicBrainz has established an official style to be used for music tracks created by the OverClocked ReMix (OC ReMix) video game music community, which is:

Include the paired double quotation marks as shown and replace elements in italic text with the named aspect from the track. All OC ReMix tracks not released on albums should be listed as standalone recordings.

• Chrono Trigger “Revival Day Impoetus” OC ReMix
• Final Fantasy VI “Little Painter Girl” OC ReMix

Extremely long titles (more than 1,024 characters, or 2,704 bytes of content) are not supported because of technological limitations. If you encounter this restriction, shorten your title value in the manner you feel is best, such as by adding the precomposed Unicode character horizontal ellipsis … (code point U+2026)—having the benefit of being a single character as opposed to three consecutive full stops—after the last full word that fits. No matter the approach taken, all entities with shortened titles must include the unabridged title as an annotation.