Best Ever Albums

Re: digital versus physical release date issue

martintho — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 07:02:19 GMT

Author: martintho

Posted: 01/12/2026 12:02

Thanx for the clarity. I think I ran into a similar issue not too long ago, but can't recall the exactity. Musicthisday is cool but full of errors, mind you.

Re: digital versus physical release date issue

albummaster — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 04:38:21 GMT

Author: albummaster

Posted: 01/12/2026 09:38

Romanelli is right, the vinyl release takes priority if multiple formats are released on the same day (BEA only lists one release, so this help prevents edit wars over which one to choose). BEA always lists the original version of a release, so if the original release is digital, that's the one that's listed (if it's a full public release and not a private download etc).

(Agree about clarity. Made a note to improve the help text, which has become a bit disjointed due to growing organically to cover edge cases, rather than everything pre-conceived).

Re: digital versus physical release date issue

MadhattanJack — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 17:52:14 GMT

Author: MadhattanJack

Posted: 01/11/2026 22:52

Romanelli wrote:

Well, the number of points one has is irrelevant.

I just meant you're more likely to have run across this sort of situation in the past than I am, is all. (Also, you can edit locked entries and I can't, which I think is because I don't have 100,000 mod points.) 😄

Also, I had thought it was just "earliest non-promo release date," and that digital vs. physical was... immaterial? I guess it's the same thing in practice, but "earliest non-promo" actually does strike me as a little bit clearer in terms of stating the rules and all. (I'm just sayin'.)

One more thing (on a completely separate note): Musicthisday.com is a cool website, but if, say, the 20th anniversary of something is coming up tomorrow, it's going to say the item is "19 years old" right up until the anniversary date — it doesn't refer to how old the item will be on that upcoming date, and since they put the "(X years old)" info right after the date, it can fool you into thinking the anniversary is a year off if you're not familiar enough with the site to be aware of it.

Re: digital versus physical release date issue

Romanelli — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 17:23:08 GMT

Author: Romanelli

Posted: 01/11/2026 22:23

Well, the number of points one has is irrelevant.

I will clarify this:

If an album is released with the digital and physical on the same day, the physical is the one used on BEA.

If an album is released with the digital being today and the physical a week later, the digital is used.

Does that clarify things?

The release date has been changed to January 12th.

Re: digital versus physical release date issue

MadhattanJack — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 17:18:05 GMT

Author: MadhattanJack

Posted: 01/11/2026 22:18

Romanelli wrote:

What is Tomorrow Fever Ray?

I think he's saying that the debut LP by Fever Ray (below) was released digitally on Jan. 12, 2009, meaning the Big 18th Anniversary Shindig would be tomorrow, but BEA is currently going by the physical release date of March 18.

Fever Ray
Fever Ray (2009)

Thankfully, this is an item-specific question — as the Discogs page says, "Fever Ray's debut release was released as an mp3-download two months before the actual CD release." Since they were completely unknown at that point, probably nobody bothered to put them in the database here until the physical release came out, as nobody outside of Sweden would have even known the early-release download version existed.

That said, since the early release apparently was not promo-only, we probably should change the BEA entry to January 12. You should probably be the one to decide because you have like a million BEA points, but either way this only applies to this particular album, not every album on the site where the digital release preceded the physical one. So, nothing major to worry about! 😁

Re: digital versus physical release date issue

Romanelli — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 16:09:18 GMT

Author: Romanelli

Posted: 01/11/2026 21:09

martintho wrote:

So this site uses the physical release date as opposed to digital? (Tomorrow Fever Ray was released according to both Wikipedia and Musicthisday.com)

What is Tomorrow Fever Ray?

digital versus physical release date issue

martintho — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 15:11:16 GMT

Author: martintho

Posted: 01/11/2026 20:11

So this site uses the physical release date as opposed to digital? (Tomorrow Fever Ray was released according to both Wikipedia and Musicthisday.com)