Strange Primary Artist metadata

Support Metadata
1

Hi, getting strange primary artist metadata on some opera recordings. Check in files metadata, not there. Check on allmusic.com, not there. We can take this album as an example.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/release/puccini-tosca-mr0004601283

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Thanks

2

I am sure you know that what has happened is that some metadata source has identified all the artist combinatioins for all of the arias as primary (though the misspelling of Prtre should have been caught, though I suspect it is a result of something not recognizing accented characters). My vote for the culprit is musicbrainz (https://musicbrainz.org/release/ed7a5a00-61b7-4fe3-9faf-9ce1b8a19615). But isn’t this sort of thing an issue with all opera recordings? Who would you say is the primary artist (or artists)? Callas? Bergonzi? Callas and Bergonzi? What about Prêtre?

3

I think there must be another issue. My problem is not with the misspelled Prtre, but with all those lines combining multiple artists Carlos Bergonzi/Giorgio… as one artist.

4

No, that’s what often happens when there are duets, trios, etc. in an opera (it also happens with oratorios, motets, cantatas, etc. and can even happen with popular music). Not for every opera, of course, but for more than you would think. That happens because Primary Artist is both an Album and a Track field. Any artist(s) identified as Primary Artist on any track will be listed as a Primary Artist for the album. And I believe all these people get listed in roon as Primary Artist - and listed as a group, not individually - for a track in this case because of the way musicbrainz has listed the data (the musicbrainz entry for this album is a bit of a mess, with inconsistent formatting used on different tracks). You cannot edit such track-derived primary artists at the album edit level, you have to edit them track by track (often a bit of a task for an opera).

7

Hi @Christophe_Lambinet,

We have some improvements on the way that we believe will help with this. I can’t provide any specific timelines just yet as we are still testing this, but you should see this behavior improved in the future!