Music MetaData Quality: a multiyear Case Study using
the Music of Skip James
Adrian Freed
CNMAT, UC Berkeley, 1750 Arch Street, Berkeley, CA 94709, USA
adrian@cnmat.berkeley.edu
ABSTRACT
The case study reported here is an exploratory step towards developing a quantitative system for audio and music metadata quality measurement. Errors, their sources and their propagation mechanisms are carefully examined in a small but meaningful subset of music metadata centered on a single artist Skip James..
Internet music portals such as the Apple iTunes Music Store, Yahoo! Music, Google Music Search and
Amazon develop their offerings by aggregating and synthesizing music metadata
of many types from many sources. These include biographical data about
composers and performers, album track listings, UPC codes, CD track hashes,
album cover graphics, related artist and related song, product pricing data
etc. The quality of this metadata varies considerably between competing vendors
in terms of accuracy and completeness. Unfortunately there are no coordinated
efforts to independently measure metadata quality and the metadata industry has
prioritized other aspects of the business such as timeliness, recommendation
systems and selling advertising space.
The effects of inaccurate metadata are numerous. There is the direct
impact to frustrated consumers and lost transactions for suppliers. There is
the long-term problem of dilution of brand equity and competitive position as
consumers lose confidence in their information sources. There is an amplification
of errors as information flows from ÒtrustedÓ sources into derivative
publications. Finally the music information retrieval research and application
communities rely on symbolic metadata for validation and training of machine-learning based music classification
systems.
The main goal of the case study reported here to identify, log and
analyze errors, their sources and the propagation mechanisms in a small subset
of music metadata. The idea is not to vilify or blame individuals or
organizations involved in the errors that are discussed. It would be
unreasonable to generalize the results here to data sources that cover hundreds
of thousands of artists. However the surprisingly high number and variety of
errors should serve to wake up the music metadata and online music distribution
industry to the scope of the problem.
The music of Skip James was chosen because:
¥ Data is available: The author has good access to
primary reference materials;
¥ Good temporal coverage: the performer was active at
the beginning of the recorded music industry, again in the 1960Õs and his
recordings are still being released.
¥ Wide variety of metadata: The artist is popular enough
that are many kinds of metadata and derivative works including videos,
biographical book, sheet music, calendars, etc.
¥ Tractable amount of data: The artist was neither too
popular nor too active.
¥ Access to experts to corroborate information
Source |
Name |
Date of
Birth |
Place
of Birth |
Residence |
Date of Death |
Place
of Death |
Cause of Death |
All Music Guide |
Skip James |
June 9th, 1902 |
Bentonia, MS |
|
Oct. 3rd 1969 |
Philadelphia, PA |
|
All Music Guide |
Nehemiah James |
June 21, 1902 |
Bentonia, MS |
|
Oct. 3rd 1969 |
Philadelphia, PA |
|
Calt [1] |
Nehemiah Curtis |
June 21, 1902 |
Yazoo City, MS |
Woodbine |
Oct. 3rd 1969 |
Philadelphia, PA |
Cancer of Penis |
MusicBrainz.org |
Skip James |
June 21, 1902 |
|
|
Oct. 3rd 1969 |
|
|
Edward Komarra [2] |
Nehemiah Curtis ÒSkipÓ James |
June 21, 1902 |
Yazoo City, MS |
Woodbine |
Oct. 3rd 1969 |
Philadelphia, PA |
|
Charters [3] |
|
June 9th, 1902 |
Whitehead |
Whitehead |
|
|
|
Stambler [4] |
|
June 9th, 1902 |
Bentonia, MS |
|
|
|
Cancer |
Muze |
|
June 9th, 1902 |
Bentonia, MS |
|
|
|
|
Calt [5] |
|
|
|
Whitehead |
|
|
|
Bonnie Rait [6] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Stomach Cancer |
Larry Hoffman [7] |
|
|
Woodbine |
|
|
|
|
Table 1 Biographical
Metadata
An artistÕs name is the most important biographical metadata element.
Although the history of Mr. JamesÕs names is relatively simple, it has proved
tricky enough to contribute to an error with wide ranging consequences: the
existence in the AMG data of two distinct artist entries for the same
person. This problem has recently
been partially corrected after many years.
Skip James given name was ÒNehemiah Curtis JamesÓ. According to him he
was given the nickname ÒSkippyÓ because he danced a lot as a child. Charters
says vaguely that
ÒSkippyÓ became ÒSkipÓ when he was a young man. Calt [1] says that Speir inadvertently introduced James to Laibly as ÒSkipÓ. The primacy
of Skip James in the metadata stems from its use by the record company on the
labels of the original 78 RPM records. The introduction of the book ÒSkip
James: Blues CollectionÓ [8] includes a phrase which will serve as a good reminder
of the importance of seeking out primary sources for factual data:
ÒBorn Nehemiah Curtis ÒskipÓ James on June 21, 1902 in Yazoo City
Mississippi, he was brought up as an only child on the Woodbine plantationÉ.Ó.
This strange and misleading sentence construct implying that his naming and
birth occurred at the same time is quite common in biographies , e.g. Memphis
Minnie, ÔBorn Lizzie "Kid" Douglas on June 3, 1897 near New
OrleansÕ [9].
Many artist naming problems can be simply solved by maintaining an exhaustive
list of pseudonyms. Problems arise if a pseudonym on this list is shared with a
different artist. In this case it is useful to use another attribute of the
artist to avoid confusion, for example the date of birth. This practice is not
widespread. A well-known
consequence involves three ÒWillie BrownÕsÓ who played guitar in the South in
the 30Õs and 40Õs. Most of the writings about these artists simply designate
ÒWillie BrownÓ leaving the reader to guess whether the reference is to the
Willie Brown who played with Memphis Minnie, Charley Patton or recorded the
classic ÒMississippi BluesÓ. Sometimes it is not possible to use the birth date
as a disambiguating attribute as it may not be known.
An interesting case of this involves a pair of guitar players both
nicknamed ÒBlind BlakeÓ. One from the Bahamas, Blake Alphonso Higgs, had modest
recognition in the 1950Õs. His biographical data is readily available. The
other was an extremely popular guitar player in the 1930Õs with over 60
recordings on Paramount records. We know practically nothing about him. We
donÕt know his real name, birthday, origins or circumstances or date of his
death. An example of the consequence of this ambiguity may be seen with a
search on EMusic of ÒBlind Blake.Ó Until EMusic recently dropped the music of
Blake Alphonso Higgs, a search listed CDÕs from both artists and the pages for
each of these CDÕs linked back to a single artist entry of that name.
Table 2 illustrates some of the many challenges associated with artist
names in metadata. Note that artist names are best represented as signals in
the sense that they are functions of time. Not mentioned in the table are the
considerable challenges associated with international characters sets.
Challenge |
Example |
Pseudonym |
Robert Zimmerman/Bob Dylan |
Contraction |
Bob Dylan/Dylan, Carlos
Santana, Santana, Blind Blake, Blind Arthur Blake |
Pseudonym evolution |
Prince/The Artist/Prince |
Fan or popular nickname |
The Artist/The Artist
Formerly Known As Prince |
Louis Armstrong/Satchmo |
|
Aliasing |
Willie Brown/Willie
Brown/Willie Brown, Blind Blake/Blind Blake |
Multiple Title |
Blind Gary Davis/Reverend
Gary Davis, |
Abbrieviations |
Rev. Gary Davis/ Reverend
Gary Davis |
Offensive |
Fuc* |
Surname qualifiers |
Hank Williams/Hank Williams
Jr. |
Character set |
??? |
With others |
Martin and Jessica
Simpson/Jessica Simpson |
Associations |
Count Basie and his
Orchestra |
Spelling |
Charlie Patton/Charley
Patton |
Acronyms |
TAFKAP |
Table 2 Author
Naming Challenge
In the case of Skip James in the All Music Guide data we have the
opposite problem to contend with: one real Skip JamesÕs with two artist entries
each with differing birthdays. The two different dates of birth arise in the
biographical writings of two reputed scholars Stephen Calt [1] and Sam Charters [3] neither of whom cite the source of their dates.
Charters date wrote the date into a book thirty years ago while Skip James was
alive. It is surprising therefore that the date persists in current metadata
despite the more extensive and more recent biographical work of Stephen Calt.
From Stephen CaltÕs writings we can infer that the Woodbine and
Whitehead plantations are one and the same, the former designation referring to
a place the latter to the owner at the time. Stephen Calt has used both
designations in his writings [5].
The most consistently reported biographical information is Skip James
date and place of death. Since his death was not controversial and in a
relatively modern hospital there is reason to be believe this is accurate.
Although his death was definitely related to the cancer he suffered from for many
years the nature and types of this cancer are not consistently reported.
Title |
Paramount |
Paramount Catalog# |
Yazoo 2009 |
AMG |
Wolf |
Biograph |
Document |
Devil Got My Woman |
L0746-1 |
13088A |
|
|
|
|
|
If You Haven't Any Hay Get
on Down the Road |
L0766-1 |
13066B, +Decca Champion
50031 |
|
Down the... |
|
If You HavenÕt Any Hay |
Haven t |
Hard Luck Child |
L0751-2 |
130106A |
|
|
Hard-Luck |
|
Hard-Luck |
Drunken Spree |
L0758-2 |
130111 |
|
|
|
|
|
Little Cow and Calf Is
Gonna Die Blues |
L0763-1 |
13085B |
|
|
|
Little Cow & Calf |
|
Be Ready When He Comes |
L0755-2 |
13108A |
|
|
|
|
|
How Long "Buck" |
L0761-1 |
13085A |
|
|
|
|
Long Buck |
I'm So Glad |
L0759-1 |
13098A |
|
|
|
|
|
Cherry Ball Blues |
L0748-2 |
13065A |
|
|
|
|
|
Hard Time Killin' Floor
Blues |
L0752-2 |
13065B |
|
|
|
|
|
22-20 Blues |
L0765-1 |
13066A +Decca Champion 50031 |
|
|
|
|
|
Four OÕClock |
L0750-1 |
13106B |
4 O'Clock |
|
4 O'Clock |
|
|
Jesus Is a Mighty Good
Leader |
L0754-1 |
13108B |
|
|
|
|
|
Yola My Blues Away |
L0756-1 |
13072 |
|
|
|
|
|
What Am I to Do Blues |
L0764-1 |
13111 |
|
|
|
|
|
Special Rider Blues |
L0760-2 |
13098B |
|
|
|
|
|
Illinois Blues |
L0749-1 |
13072 |
|
|
|
|
|
Cypress Grove Blues |
L0747-2 |
13088B |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Throw Me Down |
|
Table 3 1931
Recordings
Readily available CD transfers of Skip James recordings made in 1931
were created from 78RPM records many of which are extremely rare. For example,
there is only one known disc of ÒIllinois BluesÓ. The titles of these
recordings correspond mostly to those found on the labels of the original 78Õs
and record company logs. The differences noted in table 3 appear to be due to:
¥ a printing problem with quotation marks in the case of
Document DOCD-5005
¥ a choice to incorrectly use a numeral 4 instead of the
word Four in ÒFour OÕClockÓ
¥ hyphenation of ÒHard LuckÓ in ÒHard Luck ChildÓ
¥ Truncation due to space constraints on the label
and/or sleeve of BLP-12029
The titles above were taken from CD printed inserts or album covers as
it is now common practice to omit track listings on the CD itself, e.g., Yazoo
2009. This is the opposite of the common practice in the 1930Õs when 78RPM
record sleeves usually contained no information specific to the content.
Song (1930Õs title) |
Vanguard 79517-2 |
VCD 77/88 |
GCD9910 piano |
GCD9901 |
BCD122 |
Paramount |
Alabama Bound/Elder Greene |
|
|
All Night Long |
All Night Long |
All Night Long |
If You Haven't Any Hay |
(BCD122) |
Look Down The Road |
|
|
Look down the road |
I DonÕt Want A Woman To Stay Out All
Night Long +BCD 107 |
|
Hard Time KillinÕ Floor |
Hard Time Killing Floor Blues |
Hard Time Killing Floor |
|
Hard Time KillinÕ Floor Blues |
Hard Time Killing Floor |
|
|
|
|
|
Worried Blues |
SkipÕs Worried Blues |
|
One Dime Blues |
|
|
|
Broke & Hungry |
|
|
Deep Blue Sea Blues |
Catfish Blues |
|
|
Catfish |
Catfish Blues |
|
|
Crow Jane |
|
|
Crow Jane |
|
|
|
How Long Blues |
|
How Long Blues |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Special Rider Blues |
|
Cherry Ball Blues |
|
|
|
Cherry Ball Blues |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Black Gal |
Black Gal |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Worried Blues |
SkipÕs Worried Blues |
|
|
Little Cow, Little Calf Blues |
|
Little Cow and Calf |
|
|
|
|
Center Blues |
|
|
Washington D.C. Hospital Center Blues |
|
|
Table 4 1960Õs
Name Variants 1 of 2
The power to choose a song title (and artist pseudonym) rested with the
record company in those days not the performer and confusions and errors
abound. It was common for the same artist to perform under different pseudonyms
to evade the constraints of an exclusive recording contract and it was common
for titles to be chosen to avoid copyright issues when artists covered each
otherÕs hits. Skip James is reported to have said that ÒHow Long ÔBuckÕÓ was
mislabeled as a buck dance [5].It may be that the awkward choice of title ÒIf You HavenÕt Any Hay, Get on Down
the RoadÓ was to avoid legal disputes over one of the many variants of the song
cluster known variously as ÒAlabama Bound/ All Night Long/Elder Greene/DonÕt
Leave Me here.Ó In Skip James recordings of the 1960s the song is named ÒAll
Night LongÓ and the album listing on Biograph BLP-12016 has ÒAll Night Long (If
you HavenÕt Any Hay).Ó
Skip James sings the words Òspecial loverÓ on his 1960Õs live recording
of ÒSpecial RiderÓ probably because he knew his northern audience would not
understand his colloquial use of the term ÒriderÓ. Document RecordÕs choice to
name the song ÒSpecial LoverÓ results in the loss of the connection between
this song and other recordings of the same song. This indicates the importance of synonym metadata for song
titles as well as authors. Such connections are not just relevant to consumers
considering which song to buy they also have rights management implications.
Unfortunately the data used by organizations managing and licensing those
rights such as ASCAP, BMI, and Songfile are no more reliable than the metadata
sources so cannot be used to clarify or correct. Space limitations prevents a
complete analysis here of these errors but the must important one is that their
data is incomplete because of notoriously poor record keeping and the numerous
songs which had no copyright filing at all.
The attribution of ÒThrow Me DownÓ to Skip James on BLP-12029 is a
mistake. According to the album notes this track was from a Òtest pressing,
previously unissued, bearing Skip JamesÕs nameÓ. Fortunately this error did not
propagate beyond that album and available CDÕs contain the 18 currently
recovered 1931 recordings. It is highly unlikely but not impossible that other
1931 recordings will be discovered as Skip James claims he made 26 in that year
[1].
Song (1930Õs title) |
VMD79705-2 |
VMD79219 |
DOCD-5149 |
DOCD-5633 |
DOCD-5634 |
Alabama Bound/Elder Greene |
|
All Night Long |
|
|
|
(BCD122) |
|
Look Down The Road |
I DonÕt Want A Woman |
Look Down The Road |
|
Hard Time KillinÕ Floor |
|
Hard Times Killing Floor
Blues |
|
Hard Time KillinÕ Floor
Blues |
|
One Dime Blues |
One Dime Was All I Had |
|
|
|
|
Deep Blue Sea Blues |
|
|
|
|
Catfish Blues |
|
|
Crow Jane |
Someday You Gotta Die |
|
|
|
|
How Long |
How Long Blues |
|
|
|
|
Special Rider Blues |
Special Lover Blues |
|
|
|
|
Cherryball |
|
Cherry Ball Blues |
Cherry Ball Blues |
|
Oh, Mary DonÕt You Weep |
|
Mary DonÕt You Weep |
|
|
|
|
My Gal |
|
|
Hard Headed Woman |
|
|
Washington D.C. Hospital
Center Blues |
|
|
Washington D.C. Hospital
Center Blues |
|
|
|
Sickbed Blues |
Sickbed BLues |
|
|
|
|
Look at the People |
|
|
|
|
|
Hard Luck Child |
|
Hard-Luck Child |
Table 5 1960Õs
Name Variants 2 of 2
With the exception of
the single misattributed track, the printed information on CDÕs, albums and 78
RPM vinyl correctly attributes Skip James as performer on all tracks. However,
the path of this information to electronic form is flawed in many ways. The
problem is that most track listings have been manually re-keyed. The lack of a
universally adopted standard or widely used business process to automate error
free transfer of this information from the record companies has created a small
industry of competing sources for the information.
One source is through CD
wholesalers who enter the information as part of the process of adding new
products to their inventory. Another is from CD owners who enter track
information into jukebox applications on their personal computers. The pioneer
of this approach is GraceNote (originally called CDDB). Freedb.org, an Òopen
sourceÓ competing effort started in reaction to GraceNoteÕs assertion of
proprietary rights over data that freedb.org consider was offered by users on a
Òfree for allÓ basis. MusicMoz.org and MusicBrainz.org use volunteer human
editors to filter errors from submitted information.
Most of the errors from
CDDB/freedb.org stem from a weak database schema used in the original data
capture system. The original schema did not offer any per-track attributes.
This means there is no standardized way of entering the performer name for each
track in a compilation. Also genres are associated with CDÕs instead of tracks.
The errors that result can be readily seen for Wolf WBJ-CD-009. This is in fact
a compilation of the original 1931 Skip James and five tracks recorded by an
artist from Bentonia perported to be from the same ÒBentonia SchoolÓ of
musicians. One illustration of the problem is the title field from freedb.org:
Ò Skip James & Jack Owens / Skip James and Jack Owens 1931-1981Jack OwensÓ.
When this CD is inserted
into a Macintosh computer, AppleÕs iTunes Jukebox program consults GraceNoteÕs
CDDB servers and transfers data into AppleÕs own database format on the users
computer. AppleÕs database has a more general design which does allow for
individual track attributes but it is forced to populate these per-track fields
with copies from the per CD fields of CDDB. The result is that those original
18 Skip James tracks are attributed to both Skip James and Jack Owens. If
iTunes is used to convert the CD audio data into MP3 formatted files the
per-track data will be transformed into MP3 ID-3 tags and stored with the
compressed audio. If these MP3 files are copied (legally or illegally) the
incorrect artist attribute will propagate. It is possible to correct this data
in the local iTunes database but there is no reliable mechanism to propagate
the change back to GraceNote or fix ID-3 tags in MP3 files circulating the
Internet. The Freedb.org entry for WBJ-CD-009 will allow human users to
correctly attribute the performer to each song: each track name is preceded by
ÒSkip James:Ó or ÒJack Owens:Ó.
The approach of building
artist names into track names is common in musical metadatabases. For example
in July of 2003 an Artist Search on EMusic found Yazoo 2009 tracks but no
compilation albums containing Skip James. A ÒTrack SearchÓ for Skip James found
some compilations albums. Because of the aformentioned problems of artist name
aliases and numerous typographical conventions (dashes, colons, slashes,
prefix, postfix) it is very difficult to automatically separate artists from
track names. EMusic has worked to improve this situation: In April 2006, Skip
James artist searches identify four albums and ten compilation albums. Two of the four albums listed are
actually compilations. This results in misattribution of recordings of Son
House to Skip James. The source of this problem was challenging to track as the
YazooÕs web site fails to list this CD at all. The source of the error appears to be the All Music Guide
(who also erroneously tag Skip James as a kazoo player). Yazoo 2009 is in fact
a compilation and results in the misattribution of 7 recordings of Son House to
Skip James. The addition of Son House songs makes little sense musically or
historically. Yazoo is perhaps attempting to compete with the JSP CD by filling
available space on the CD with the same artist as JSP did for their boxed set.
This is worrisome because it suggests compilation CDÕs may not be a reliable
source of good clustering data for Òrelated artistÓ recommendations.
The EMusic encoding of
DOCD-5005 has the incorrect track data on the ID-3 tags of the tracks and the
previews and tracks are mislabeled. A customer review entry points this out and
recommends another source. This suggests that EMusic and others could improve
their metadata by creating a detailed form for customers to correct their
metadata and report encoding problems.
Title |
Instruments |
DOCD-5005 |
AMG |
Wolf |
iTunes (cddb) for |
Authors |
CDDB Genre |
Yazoo |
Devil Got My Woman |
Guitar,Vocals |
(James) Wynwood Music |
James |
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Blues |
Blues |
1930 |
If You Haven't Any Hay Get
on Down the Road |
Piano/Vocals/Foot tapping |
(James) Wynwood Music |
|
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Blues |
Blues |
1930 |
Hard Luck Child |
Guitar,Vocals |
(Unidentified) Copyright
Control |
|
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Blues |
Blues |
1930 |
Drunken Spree |
Guitar,Vocals |
(James) Wynwood Music |
James |
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
|
Blues |
1930 |
Little Cow and Calf Is
Gonna Die Blues |
Piano/Vocals/Foot tapping |
(James) Wynwood Music |
James |
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Blues |
Blues |
1930 |
Be Ready When He Comes |
Guitar,Vocals |
(James) Wynwood Music |
|
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Gospel |
Blues |
1930 |
How Long "Buck" |
Guitar,Vocals |
(James) Wynwood Music |
|
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Blues |
Blues |
1930 |
I'm So Glad |
Guitar,Vocals |
(James) Wynwood Music |
James |
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Blues |
Blues |
1930 |
Cherry Ball Blues |
Guitar,Vocals |
(James) Wynwood Music |
James |
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Blues |
Blues |
1930 |
Hard Time Killin' Floor
Blues |
Guitar,Vocals |
(James) Wynwood Music |
|
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Blues |
Blues |
1930 |
22-20 Blues |
Piano/Vocals/Foot tapping |
(James) Wynwood Music |
James |
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Blues |
Blues |
1930 |
Four OÕClock |
Guitar,Vocals |
(James) Copyright Control |
Durham |
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Blues |
Blues |
1930 |
Jesus Is a Mighty Good
Leader |
Guitar,Vocals |
(James) Wynwood Music |
|
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Gospel |
Blues |
1930 |
Yola My Blues Away |
Guitar,Vocals |
(James) Wynwood Music |
|
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Blues |
Blues |
1930 |
What Am I to Do Blues |
Piano/Vocals/Foot tapping |
(James) Wynwood Music |
|
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Blues |
Blues |
1930 |
Special Rider Blues |
Guitar,Vocals |
(James) Wynwood Music |
James |
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Blues |
Blues |
1930 |
Illinois Blues |
Guitar,Vocals |
(James) Wynwood Music |
James |
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Blues |
Blues |
1930 |
Cypress Grove Blues |
Guitar,Vocals |
(James) Wynwood Music |
James |
Skip James |
Skip James & Jack Owens |
Blues |
Blues |
1930 |
Backwater Blues |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Blues |
Blues |
|
Everybody Ought To Live
Right |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Gospel |
Blues |
|
I Want To Be More Like
Jesus |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Gospel |
Blues |
|
Jack Of Diamonds |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Field Holler |
Blues |
|
My Last Boogie |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Blues |
Blues |
|
Lazy Bones |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
Hoagy Carmichael |
|
Popular |
Blues |
|
Let My Jesus Lead You |
|
Copyright Control |
Traditional |
|
|
Gospel |
Blues |
|
My Own Blues |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Blues |
Blues |
|
Oh, Mary Don't You Weep |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Gospel |
Blues |
|
Omaha Blues |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Blues |
Blues |
|
Bumble Bee |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Blues |
Blues |
|
One Dime Was All I Had |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Blues |
Blues |
|
Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And
Burning |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Gospel |
Blues |
|
Somebody Gonna Wish They
Had Religion |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Gospel |
Blues |
|
Somebody Loves You |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Gospel |
Blues |
|
Sorry For To Leave You |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Gospel |
Blues |
|
Sporting Life Blues |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Blues |
Blues |
|
They Are Waiting For Me |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Gospel |
Blues |
|
Walking The Sea |
|
Traditional |
Traditional |
|
|
Gospel |
Blues |
|
Table 6 Song
Attributes
CD owners can choose to
enter any term into the CD genre attribute in freeDB.org entries. The term
ÒBentonia BluesÓ is interesting because that term is both controversial amongst
scholars and unlikely to be very useful in practice for example in recommender
system [reference] since there are so few other CDÕs or artists that anyone is
likely to label with that genre designation. Besides, as discussed in the next
section, attaching a single genre to an artist or album is a bad and obsolete
idea.
Many professional
musicians and certainly Skip James contemporaries in the 1930Õs played songs in
a diverse variety of styles in different contexts (weddings, dances, church
meetings etc., clubs, brothels, house parties etc.) to diverse audiences. In fact
many musicians were adept at arranging songs from core musical and textual
material into different genres, e.g. Robert WilkinsÕs song ÒProdigal SonÓ
(Gospel) and ÒThatÕs No Way to Get AlongÓ (Blues) use the same melody and
guitar arrangement. Many musicians from this period had a ÒcleanÓ and ribald
version of the same song, e.g.,ÒDonÕt Leave Me HereÓ and ÒDonÕt Ease Me InÓ of
Henry Thomas. From interviews of Skip James [1] and his recorded legacy seen as a whole it is clear
he was comfortable with many styles on both guitar and piano including, stride
piano, boogie-woogie, blues, gospel, popular songs and field hollers. All
online metadata the author is aware of describe Skip James songs as simply
ÒbluesÓ or a specific blues subgenre.
The standard genres and
subgenre hierarchies presented to users in music navigation systems are derived
from an obsolete scheme designed to organize the inventory and browsing
behavior of customers in bricks-and-mortar record stores in the 1950Õs and
1960Õs. ÒWorld Music,Ó ÒNew Age,Ó and ÒFolk MusicÓ are current examples of
dubious categorizations of little practical value [1].
For metadata errors to be resolved it is essential
that recording industry adopt the equivalent of a unique ISBN number for
individual sound recordings. One option is the Global Release Identifier (GRid) of the mi3p standard effort currently in draft status.
Without unambiguous identifiers it is impossible to reliably check, merge and
correlate data from different sources.
Relating vendor product
codes back to the recording codes will be challenging but is essential for
honest digital rights management. Curiously, the best source of data for achieving
this may not be record companies or any of the metadata sources mentioned so
far; it may be carefully researched academic compilations [10-12].
Poor database schema and
poor data on compilation albums result in the creation and propagation of
artist and genre attribution errors.
Data on such albums (when they can be identified) need special scrutiny
and probably careful human editing.
Larger more complex
database schema will be needed to tackle the metadata errors and provide
accurate digital rights management.
Metadata providers
should provide feedback mechanisms so that the customers the metadata was
created to serve can collaboratively contribute corrections. Currently it is
difficult for customers to even identify the source organization to send
corrections to.
Genre and other
categorization schemes are an active area of research and development. The
metadata industry now faces the challenge of blending their proprietary
ontologies with personal and group ontologies enabled by web 2.0 semantic
tagging [13-15].
Although it doesnÕt fit
current habits of relational database users many of the metadata values should
be viewed as signals, i.e., functions of time that need to be tracked. Genres
usually emerge decades after recordings, artists change their names and the
names of their songs. The complexity of the required scheme should not be
underestimated. The over 900 items in the draft mi3p data dictionary are a
sobering read.
Inevitably more audio
metadata will be embedded in encoded audio and be available during playback in
consumer devices. More efficient binary representations will be needed than the
xml schemas in current use. Mature time tagging and sound description standards
such as SDIF may be helpful.
This work can be
extended to evaluating how long it takes metadata providers to correct their
data and how long it takes for corrections to be propagated.
This work can also be
used as a starting point for a more extensive statistical analysis of metadata
quality.
Skip James enthusiasts
and scholars can complement this work by analyzing the quality of metadata on
video and images and musical transcriptions.
All
Music Guide (AMG) |
|
Muze |
|
SDIF |
|
EMusic |
|
Freedb |
|
Gracenote |
|
Yazoo
records |
|
Musicbrainz |
|
musicmox |
|
Songfile |
|
BMI |
|
ASCAP |
|
Mi3p |
[1] S. Calt, I'd
rather be the devil : Skip James and the blues. New York: Da Capo Press, 1994.
[2] E.
Komarra, Introduction to The Skip James Blues Collection: Hal Leonard.
[3] S.
B. Charters, The bluesmen; the story and the music of the men who made the
blues. New York,: Oak Publications,
1967.
[4] I.
Stambler, G. Landon, and I. Stambler, Encyclopedia of folk, country &
western music, 2nd ed. New York,
N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, 1983.
[5] S.
Calt, "Liner Notes of Skip James: The Complete Early Recordings,"
Yazoo, 1986.
[6] Hocheman,
"Passion For Blues and Filmmaking," in LA Times Calendar, 2002.
[7] L.
Hoffman, "Liner Notes to She Lyin' by Skip James," Genes Records,
1993.
[8] J.
Perin, The Skip James Blues Collection: Hal Leonard.
[9] "Drinkin'
in the Blues," 2006. http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Quarter/5939/memphisminnie.html
[10] M.
Leadbitter and N. Slaven, Blues records, 1943-1970 : a selective discography. London, England: Record Information Services, 1987.
[11] M.
Leadbitter and N. Slaven, Blues records, January 1943 to December 1966. London: Hanover Books, 1968.
[12] J.
Godrich and R. M. W. Dixon, Blues & gospel records, 1902-1942. London: Storyville Publications, 1969.
[13] G.
Stamou, S. Kollias, and MyiLibrary., Multimedia content and the semantic Web
methods, standards, and tools.
Chichester, West Sussex, England ; Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2005.
[14] J.
Davies, R. Studer, and P. Warren, Semantic Web technologies : trends and
research in ontology-based systems.
Chichester, England ; Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006.
[15] S.
Sirmakessis, Adaptive and personalized semantic web. Berlin ; New York: Springer, 2006.