Duplication Blues

I started collecting music 65 years ago. It’s a huge collection now. I have everything in mp3 format in storage boxes and each track is documented in an Access database where I keep the information of its location in the box, as well as title, artist, composer, lyricist, date of recording, name of original release.

When my collection met SecondHandSongs it was love at first sight. For a while it was a one sided affair, for SHS was used to fill-in gaps, make corrections and inform about versions I was missing. But slowly I started sending in error reports and complementary information on recording dates.

Then, in spite of my old age and lack of computer education, I started submitting new covers. And I already sent a lot. In June alone I sent about 900, being about 300 for the same song “All the things you are”, which had already over 1.000 in SHS.

That’s when I started suffering from the Duplication Blues.

I thought that the verification process had only one set of rules once a submission was complete (everything accepted by the computer system), but reality shows a diferente thing. Some of my submissions were rejected with only one explanation – DUPLICATION. I sent comments defending my case, but rejected they remained.

I decided to write this looking for guidance from people who know better and I’m showing some exemples of the so called DUPLICATIONS.

1. Already in SHS – Alone Too Long by Tommy Flanagan 1978. It’s Flanagan pi solo

I submitted - Along Too Long by Tommy Flanagan TRIO 1993. Flanagan/Washington/Nash

2. Already in SHS – Airegin by Alan Broadbent Trio 1987. It’s Broadbent/Smith/Gibson

I submitted – Airegin by Aland Broadbent 2021. I ommited trio (Broabent/Harvey/Mintz)

3. Already in SHS – Satin Doll by Jean Bonal Quartet Club of France 1981

I submitted – Satin Doll by Jean Bonal 2001. It’s Bonal with 9 other musicians.

4. Already in SHS – All The Things You Are by Paul Bley Trio 1986. It’s Bley/Lundgaard/Hart

I submitted – All The Things You Are by Paul Bley 1998 (piano solo)

I’m resting my case, but before I go I’d like to say that in my opinion DUPLICATIONS are automatically refused by the computer system or are, on verification, found as the same take in two different releases. All versions of a song by the same artist in diferente phases of his life and with different arrangements and musicians should be accomodated. If this is not to be, what will happen to Frank Sinatra on Capitol, which is in a large part a “duplication” of his Columbia Songbook.

Hello Tunesmith ,

First of all, a big THANK YOU for all your contributions to date! 1611 submissions, 172 error reports, 160 updates, 118 videos... those are really impressive numbers! It's thanks to contributors like you that this database has become what it is today.

Last edit: 2022-07-06 19:16:09 UTC by Bastien

Second, when building this database we had to define the scope: what's in and what's out. The following is one of the major rules that was adopted:

Only 1 performance of a particular work per artist is allowed.

Over the years we have adopted 3 exceptions:

• When each of these performance are either a first performance, a first recording, a first release, or sampled by another performance.
• In special cases of medleys
• When an artist records a separate vocal and instrumental version of the same work.

You can read this in detail and with examples in our guidelines.

Naievely we assumed this was going to settle most discussions, but it didn't. The reason is, when you have a cover by Tommy Flanagan Trio, is the latter:

• An artist alias of Tommy Flanagan?
• Or a group of which Tommy Flanagan is a member?

... and the answer to thát question will determine whether the "2nd" performance by Tommy Flanagan is accepted or not.

This is the context you need to know before we get deeper into the subject matter.

Last edit: 2022-07-06 19:28:47 UTC by Bastien

Third, I totally understand your frustration when having submissions rejected which you find super relevant. So let's have a look at some of the examples given and see if the rejections were valid or not. I must warn you in advance though, it's often not very a black/white situation, and therefore it's not easy for our editors to make a call.

Let's start with Submission #149025 , processed/rejected by DashBoardDJ856 .

Currently we have a solo piano version Alone Too Long by Tommy Flanagan , and you're submitting the trio version.

When you look at Tommy Flanagan , you'll see that "Tommy Flanagan Trio" is set up as an artist alias of Tommy Flanagan, in other words, it's the same artist with another name. Based on this DashBoardDJ856 was right to reject your entry.

But of course, you could challenge that based on the argument that "Tommy Flanagan Trio" should be a separate group, of which Tommy Flanagan is a member. These are the relevant guidelines:

From https://secondhandsongs.com/page/Guidelines/Entities/Artists/ArtistAlias

I'm not a Tommy Flanagan expert, so what do you say Tunesmith , based on the above?

Hi Bastian

Thanks for writing back.

It’s obvious that my native language is not English and sometimes I don’t quite understand your arguments and at the same time my arguments may not be clear enough to you too. Old age doesn’t help either. You’ll get there and you’ll see.

First of all I’m a big fan of SHS and music collecting has been to me more than a hobby for decades.

When I contribute to SHS my purpose is try to make it better and for me it means that SHS has the best covers for every existing significant song. I just don’t care for every song written and published. I’m mostly interested in those that were so relevant that sold by the millions and at the same time were covered by thousands from their births to the present.

Guidelines are often a by-product of burocracy. If a guideline prevent the best covers to be present at SHS, they deserve a serious second thought

Let me give you an exemple which is totally fictional but that could well be real.

Let’s assume that in 1947 André Previn records Summertime as piano solo.

And that the André Previn Trio (Previn+relevant bass+ relevant drummer) records Summertime in 1977.

And that André Previn leads a 30 piece Big Band and records Summertime arranged by Quincy Jones in 2007.

If guidelines say that these three totally different covers that have as a common factor that André Previn is the leader in all of them and the song is Summertime must have two of them ruled out, then SHS will deeply disappoint me.

As I wrote before, Frank Sinatra is a good example. He recorded originals and mostly covers with Harry James, Tommy Dorsey and under his own name in Columbia. When he moved to Capitol he covered again lots of those songs. Far better covers. Both can’t be left out. They are the history of popular music. And then we have those Sinatra same songs in live events with prominente directors and arrangers. They are historical. Forget about guidelines that make SHS poorer.

Jazz musicians with long careers recorded the same theme several times. They are independente works. Jazz is improvisation and each cover has different musicians playing with the same leader. This deserves serious thought from those taking decisions in SHS.

Sorry for taking your time. I’ll get back to the theme of Tommy Flanagan.

Now Tommy Flanagan.

Already in SHS there was Tommy Flanagan playing Alone too long solo in 1977.

As I infer from your comments Tommy Flanagan Trio (Tommy Flanagan pi + Peter Washington ba + Lewis Nash dr) in 1994 couldn’t be accepted for a question of aliases.

If Instead of Tommy Flanagan Trio I had used Tommy Flanagan, Peter Washington, Lewis Nash I know it would have been accepted.

Along this period I’ve been active in SHS I’ve seen hundreds of cases equal to mine not being rejected. I don’t want to take your time, so I picked up just a very small number os examples found in the covers section of the artists.

1. Lee Konitz/Lee Konitz Quartet in Stella by Starlight

2. Lee Konitz/Lee Konitz Terzet in Cherokee

3. Lee Konitz/Lee Konitz Nonet in Giant steps

4. Lee Konitz/Lee Konitz Quartet in Lover man

5. André Previn/André Previn Trio in A fine Romance

6. Tommy Flanagan/Tommy Flagan Trio in Between the devil and the deep blue sea (oh how I like this one)

7. I even found one I thought the computer wouldn’t let get through. Look up Lee Konitz in Skylark.

I only want to help make SHS better. Please give me some feed back.

I’ve just got the mark of 2.000 covers submitted and one month passed since I last wrote on this topic.

I had raised some touchy subjects, exemples were cited and a feed back plea was delivered.

After one month I got none.

Meanwhile I was submitted to another dose of duplication blues, this once with dire consequences.

I submitted a 1976 cover of “All The Things You” Are by Andre Kostelanetz and it was rejected for duplication of a 1941 78rpm by Andre Kostelanetz Orchestra. I wrote back asking why mine had been rejected when exacly the same situation had been accepted for the song “What is this thing called love” present in this artist covers. As a consequence mine remained rejected and the other, that was already there, was written off. Two good covers were lost.

Had I done the same with the hundreds of similar situations in SHS and hundred of covers would have been removed.

On another hand, as my unassigned covers kept piling up, I realized that submissions of an intire realease were dealt with right away. So I started doing realeases and what happened is that there were always one or two titles that had already been accepted for releases from decades before, when the performer worked with other musicians and arrangers. The inclusion of the whole work revealed an impossible task.

SHS is nowadays too large and too important for music collectors and music lovers to keep sweeping these issues under the rug and a debate should be opened.

There must exist a set of guidelines and equal cases must have equal tretment, but most of all creative solutions must be found, so that outstanding versions of prominente artists (jazz musicians at the top) don’t finish in the rejection bin. The rule that the first version of a theme by an artist will prevent all the other subsequent ones to be included should not prevail.

I’m available to contribute with ideas and hope that other members do the same so that SHS keeps the best covers and don’t send them to waste.

Just scanned this thread, but from what I gathered my advice:

a) Get an alias determination first prior to submitting a string of performances that may get rejected as duplicates. If in question, file an error report if a questionable duplicate is already processed/added, ask in this forum, or email sebcat who is the SHS rule guru for a determination.

b) For new artists or questionable aliases, only submit one performance per release, noting any additional covers.in the body of the submission. This risks just one rejection rather than all the time invested in submitting all of the others.

As for later released re-recordings of the same work by the same artist: Absent some narrow exception, you're out of luck. Bastian is hostile to these even being noted in comments.

Quote from Bastien

Only 1 performance of a particular work per artist is allowed.

Over the years we have adopted 3 exceptions:

• When each of these performance are either a first performance, a first recording, a first release, or sampled by another performance.
• In special cases of medleys
• When an artist records a separate vocal and instrumental version of the same work.

I think you could (or should) add here the "prominent joint performer credit" case(s)...

The problem of being a late arrival is that it causes a large margin of ignorance about the basics.

One of the major questions is about the purpose. What is the main purpose of this site:

- Get together as many covers as possible of any song, with a quota of one cover per performer (with those few exceptions)?

Or

- Get together as many covers as possible of any song, with a special emphasis on the songs that belong to the world songbook (and deservedly have dozens, hundreds or thousands of covers), favoring the best covers and including the covers of the more prominent performers, many of them covering the same title with different partners and in different stages of their carriers?

From what I read from those who cared to listen to my duplication blues, the answer is obviously the first.

I deeply regret this, but who am I to change the status quo.

I’m resting my case, but at least I tried.

Quote from Tunesmith

I’m resting my case, but at least I tried.

Thank you for your contribution Tunesmith

The only thing that I would add is that we can note later recordings by an artist of a particular cover version in the comments field. I often do that. If the later release is in the database, then I would reference the later cover version on the performance page, linking to the later release, and on the page of the later release too. So while these later performances won't have their own entry, they can be recorded in the database. I'll post an example when I come across one.

Quote from sebcat

The only thing that I would add is that we can note later recordings by an artist of a particular cover version in the comments field.

Bastien has expressed hostility towards these comments, so much that I and others (I believe) took as official SHS policy.

Quote from VirileVagabond

Quote from sebcat

The only thing that I would add is that we can note later recordings by an artist of a particular cover version in the comments field.

Bastien has expressed hostility towards these comments, so much that I and others (I believe) took as official SHS policy.

Ah I wasn’t aware. Could you point me towards the relevant forum discussion?

Seems like things came to a head ~12 months ago? A number of various error reports and perhaps dedicated thread in a section to which I no longer have access. Nevertheless, the hostility was clear.

Quote from sebcat

Ah I wasn’t aware. Could you point me towards the relevant forum discussion?

Likely the most detailed exchange on this question: Error report #43544

Last edit: 2022-08-16 16:06:44 UTC by Tar Heel

VV yes another good example of management's passive aggressive hostilities to certain individuals. Instead of solutions or compromises, it's a punch you in the stomach and move on solution.

sebcat Any final determination?

Quote from VirileVagabond

sebcat Any final determination?

Personally I would add a comment to flag other, later versions, but suspect it is optional as per the guidelines.