[Fergenaprido]

What is the policy regarding bonus and hidden tracks? I know of a number of albums that have been released and re-released with bonus or hidden tracks. Should a separate album be created for each version (i.e. Japanese version, 2000 remastered version, etc.), or should we also include hidden and bonus tracks in the track listing for the core album?

A prime example would be The Man Who by Travis (wikipedia here), which has a standard edition, Japanese bonus tracks, American bonus tracks, Special 'Live' Edition bonus tracks, and Limited Edition bonus tracks.

Thanks

[VADERBREWING]

I think the albums should count as one. I know that would be hard for some purist or obsesive personalities. But really most of that stuff is just bling bling to try and get people to buy an album. Comic books do the same thing. have an issue with 4 or 5 variant covers. You can drive yourself nuking futs if you want to.

I know that I personally look for the release of top albums with bonus tracks. I feel my library of tunes are improved. Then again I delete sucky songs too, so my album experience is somewhat personalized.

I wouldn't take the time to compare a release to an original release. Thats like comparing twins.
_________________
New fav's: The Weepies, Art Brut, 311. Old Fav's: Bowie, zepalin, stones, buckcherry, cheap trick, couting crowes. Seen: Black Crowes, Nirvana, Ugly Kid Joe, Pretenders, Phycadelic furs, Ozzy, Thompson Twins, B Adams...regret not seeing G&R.

[albummaster]

the policy here is that we just use the track-listing from the original version of the album, excluding bonus tracks. VADERBREWING's right, it starts getting very messy indeed when you start adding variations of each release. The main purpose of the site is to surface the best albums, and it becomes impossible to do this if you are comparing two different releases of the same album. So, for consistency's sake, the original release is used.

[Fergenaprido]

Okay, thanks; it makes perfect sense. I guess I'm just unfortunate enough to often like the bonus tracks more than I like the songs on the original album.

[RFNAPLES]

I agree with the OP. I think albummaster may have misinterpreted the reply from VADERBREWING. I believe he was suggesting that bonus tracks be listed and noted on the original album track listing and not as a separate album listing. Parenthetical notes could be made indicating same. Like the others I enjoy the bonus tracks and would like to rate them. Often the bonus track versions are the only one in print.
_________________
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by RFNAPLES
Bubbling Under The Top 100 Greatest Mus...y RFNAPLES

[albummaster]

I'm not sure I did misunderstand actually, but to be honest, I'm pretty happy with the way things are at the moment. I think it strikes the right balance between what this site is wanting to achieve, and the overhead of data maintenance.

There are other sites that try to catalogue every detail of every release (and none of them have a complete history of every band or album). We'd just be fighting a losing battle the whole time trying to catalogue every version of each release, and I'm not sure the pay-off is that big in terms of adding 'missing' information that BEA needs to fulfil it's site concept.

[RFNAPLES]

I agree, we would not get all the bonus tracks right; we don't always get the orginal tracks right!
_________________
Top 100 Greatest Music Albums by RFNAPLES
Bubbling Under The Top 100 Greatest Mus...y RFNAPLES

[Fergenaprido]

When I get around to updating my chart, I want to add comments to each album, so I guess I can always include my favourite bonus tracks in the comments. And I concur, perhaps adding all those bonus tracks will just complicate the album page to the point where it stops being useful or interesting and just becomes annoying.

On a similar note, what do we do about albums that were released in different versions? Exhibit A: We Are Pilots (wikipedia article) by Shiny Toy Guns was released three different times by three different record companies. Each version has a different track listing, and some songs were even re-recorded for the newer releases. The third release is probably the most well-known, and is the one that features on BEA, but it varies quite a lot from the original release.

[weedygonsalez]

Then there's also the cases of a lot of the earlier Stones albums, which were released in completely different forms/titles/everything in America and the UK. I'm not familiar with where this stands in the canon, but it's illustrative of the point Ferge is making.

[albummaster]