Wrong Date Category Used by Focus

When I select by years using Focus, roon appears to use release date and not recording date. And that’s a problem. For example, if I want to use Focus to listen to jazz recorded in the 2010’s I end up with some that was recorded decades ago. In particular, setting Focus to 2010-2019, the set of albums includes half a dozen by Art Pepper, who died in 1982 and whose music, while immimently ernjoyable, is hardly characteristic of the jazz of the 2010s. And these are not reissues, but the original issue of these particular recordings, which are, tellingly, called Unreleased Art. They were recorded in the 70s and 80s; but if I use Focus to select the 1970s they aren’t included like they should be. Is there a way I can use Focus to selected music recorded in a time period and not music released in a time period? If not, why not?

I did see that someone had sometime ago suggest that using Focus to select composition year would be useful (in classical); I agree and do not understand why what I think is the least useful date - release date - is the only one usuable in Focus.

For me, Roon seems to be using Original Release Date if it exists.

Yes, Original Release is what roon is using and that is the problem. Despite Universal having its music archive go up in flames (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/universal-fire-master-recordings.html), lots of music recorded decades ago is being found and released for the first time, so that the actual Original Release may be 2018 or 2019, yet the music is actually from the 1960s or 70s, but there is no (easy) way in roon to select those albums by the original recording date. Here is what I mean:

John Coltrane: Both Directions at Once - Recorded 1963, First release 2018
Thelonious Monk: Mønk - Recorded 1963, First release 2018
Art Pepper: Unreleased Art VIII (At the Winery) - Recorded 1976, First release 2013

And besides that there are the increasing numbers oif multi-decade compilation albums for which the Original Release date bears no relationship to the era of the music:

Blue Note: Uncompromising Expression, Disc 1: Recordings from 1939 - 1953, Original Release date of compilation 2014

If roon thinks Original Release and Release Date are important then they should keep them as part of Focus. But why can’t they add recording date, too, like most other music players do.

I see that awareness of Recording Date has already been requested:

Perhaps you could add your voice to this and include the extra use case of having Focus be made aware of Recording Date, rather than simply Original Release Date…?

Seems very strange that when viewing albums by an artist that the sequence is based on a release date rather than when it was actually recorded. Should be an option to choose that all recordings be shown by either of these.

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