Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (music)

See also discussion started at category talk:musical compositions, derived from a RfC topic

RFC: Groups / Bands

"(group)", "(band)", "(musical group)", what should it be? (CC) Tbhotch^™ 03:19, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Background

Per WP:BANDDAB et al., a supplementary page that I wrote and got approved through RFC, and that was later merged here:

• Use "(band)" when the musical ensemble members perform by playing musical instruments, for example Garbage (band) or Town & Country (band).
• Use "(group)" when the musical ensemble members do not perform by playing musical instruments, the members are mainly vocalists, and other people perform by playing musical. This includes all non-performing boy bands (e.g. One Direction, BTS, and Wanna One) and girl groups (e.g. Spice Girls, Morning Musume, and Blackpink), for example TLC (group), Red Velvet (group), or RD (group)

The examples provided above were an example of how inconsistent the disambiguation parentheses were before 2015 when this was written. The "when the musical ensemble" clause was the only logical solution I found to comprehend why RD (group) is at "RD (group)" while Garbage (band) is at "Garbage (band)". Since then, editors have had conflicts about when and why "(group)" should be used instead of "(band)", most notably at pages related to South Korean groups, groups known to be boy bands and girl groups (terms that are the key point of the conflict). The most common excuse to not use "group" is because "group" is vague:

• RD (group) → (financial group)? (art group)? (political group)?

But that's a poor rationale:

• For example, Kathleen Kennedy (producer) → film producer? record producer? video game producer?
• Kamal (director) → theatre director? CEO? school director?
• Stephen Andrews (artist) → make-up artist? plastic artist? musician? sculptor?
• Tim Sullivan (athlete) → Track and field mentions several disciplines.

As you can see "vague" disambiguation exists, not only in music. Band itself is vague, but as people are associating more and more the term "band" with "musical band", Wikipedians don't complain about it. The idea here is not going to the extreme like Red Cross with Imperial Portraits (Fabergé egg) does. How many "Red Cross with Imperial Portraits" exist in the world? Just one, but people who supported that thought that "Red Cross with Imperial Portraits" would be more confusing.

The discussions in particular (I know about) are Talk: BTS/Archive 2#Requested move 8 December 2018 and Talk:2AM (band)#Requested move 21 February 2021, which leads to the initial question. Is "(group)" bad and should be excluded, is "(band)" better and the most viable solution, or every article should use the neutral and concise "(musical group)", as suggested by the two users above. Our article is at Musical ensemble and practically the following are as viable as any other option: "(music group)", "(musical group)", "(music band)", "(musical band)". Also, should we completely disappear other alternatives like "(duo)", "(vocal ensemble)", "(jazz ensemble)", "(orchestra)", etc? (CC) Tbhotch^™ 03:19, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Discussion

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I declare this discussion closed by creating a new WP page called WP:GROUPDAB. -St3095 ^(?) 16:14, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

---

• Neutral. I, however, and for the record, I'm disappointed about how editors are always complaining about things over and over again, in multiple places, yet they don't even attempt to fix things. 5 years ago I was proactive and requested to change this vaguely written guideline because an editor that I won't mention was gaming the system and moving pages around because the guideline specifically said "Only when necessary" understanding that as "if two songs of the same name exist, one with an article, one without it, disambiguate both of them." After several months I realized no one else would take the initiative. 5 years later I see things are still the same. (CC) Tbhotch^™ 03:19, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
• Replace (band) and (group) with (musical group). As seen in the discussions, "band" has its detractors when it comes to describing non-instrumentalists, and "group" is vague and not immediately associated with music. It's unlikely that Foo (band) and Foo (group) would sufficiently disambiguate anyway, so the two labels can be merged into one. I also believe that the label (musical group) accurately describes the topic without making any implications regarding instruments, which was a concern with 2AM (band) et al. 162.208.168.92 (talk) 19:29, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose this level of instruction creep - these terms are, by and large, synonymous in different times and places, yet in other places and times may not be entirely. (For example, John Lennon had said that the Beatles, at the time they existed, according to England-terminology, were a group and not band, because 'band' indicated matching bands, or Glenn Miller style bands ('big bands' in America). Therefore, there should be flexability allowed, and it should determined on a case by case basis. And, unless there is a particularly strong argument for why any particular term should not be used in a particular case, then all terms ought be acceptable (with exception: groups that exclusively sing should not be called bands, with 'boy bands' being the exception; boy bands are not true bands, but boy band is what they are called, so they can be the alliterative boy counterpart to 'girl groups'). Firejuggler86 (talk) 11:19, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose strict (uniform) policy per firejuggler; a guideline to use "(musical group)" where there is contention over other options seems like an excellent one. – SJ + 15:27, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

@Firejuggler86 and Sj: Oppose...what? The main question is ""(group)", "(band)", "(musical group)", what should it be?". Whatever I said after it is an explanation of why I opened the RM. "Opposing" won't change the current status quo and users will still attempt to use RM to change "band" to "group", and people will still oppose "group" due to its alleged vagueness (regardless if the RM is individual or collective). The writing still there but it needs to be adjusted and it could be rewritten as "use either (band) or (group) according to how the musical group is described by third-party sources." (CC) Tbhotch^™ 19:23, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Ah yes -- I like your language. "Use (band) or (group) or equivalent according to ..." – SJ + 20:26, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Major Broadway songs do not require a standalone song article to be considered in dab and titling discussions

Does anyone disagree? In ictu oculi (talk) 21:05, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to deviate from the longstanding naming convention at WP:SONGDAB, which was established following this 2016 RfC. 162 etc. (talk) 21:44, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

An earlier unreleased recording of a pop song surpassing the official release

Watchers of this page may be interested in the discussion at Talk:Karma (2024 song)#Requested move 17 April 2024 older ≠ wiser 11:25, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

In the case that an artist releases music under multiple aliases, should their name or one of their aliases take title precendence?

In particular, Keith Rankin of Death's Dynamic Shroud has released a great deal of music under the solo project Giant Claw (the current title of his Wikipedia page), but has also solo-produced several death's dynamic shroud mixtapes to the point that his releases under that (group) alias rival his number of releases as Giant Claw. As he is established as a primary member of DDS in addition to these solo releases, should his article remain under the title "Giant Claw" or be revised to his name? Psidey (talk) 00:46, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Best handled case-by-case. Ultimately, WP:COMMONNAME would overrule any naming convention that we write in here. 162 etc. (talk) 16:32, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Naming conventions for boy bands

There seems to be a huge disconnect between what is listed in this naming convention guideline and what is actually out there in the wild.

WP:BANDDAB states the naming convention for non-instrument playing musical ensembles is to:
Use "(group)" when the musical ensemble members do not perform by playing musical instruments, the members are mainly vocalists, and other people perform by playing musical instruments.

Now, let's look at what the boy band articles are actually named, in practice:

• I looked at the top 5 most-populated categories in Category:Boy bands by nationality
  • Category: South Korean boy bands - Of the 101 articles that use a disambiguator, 79 are disambiguated with "band", and only 22 with "group" (78% use "band")
  • Category: Japanese boy bands - Of the 20 articles that use a disambiguator, 16 are disambiguated with "band", and only 4 with "group" (80% use band)
  • Category: American boy bands - Of 37 articles that use a disambiguator, 27 are disambiguated with "band", and only 10 with "group" (73% use band)
  • Category: Taiwanese boy bands - Of 8 articles that use a disambiguator, 7 are disambiguated with "band", zero disambiguated with "group". (100% use band)
  • Category: Chinese boy bands - Of 6 articles that use a disambiguator, 5 are disambiguated with "band", 1 is disambiguated with "group". (83% use band)

Overall, of the five categories I checked, 78% of boy band articles that require a disambiguation are using "band".

It seems like, while "group" is the de-jure disambiguator for non-instrument-playing boy bands, in practice, the widely accepted convention is to use "band". And I know what you're thinking, "some boy bands play instruments!", well, not these ones - you can check for yourselves, these are all (or almost all) singing/dancing bands, not instrument bands.

So, where do we go from here? Do we start the process of bringing those "band" articles into "group" naming convention? Do we update the naming convention to match what is most common in actual practice? Do we just leave everything as the status-quo and hope it all works itself out in the end?

Thoughts? RachelTensions (talk) 04:06, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I'll note that girl groups don't have the same issue - they almost universally use "group" as their disambiguator.

I think part of the disconnect is because the terminology is "boy band" vs. "girl group" - the more natural disambiguation for "boy band" is "band" because that word is already part of what that class of musical ensemble is commonly known as. The opposite is true for for "girl group" - using the "group" disambiguator is natural because "group" is part of that class of musical ensemble's common name. RachelTensions (talk) 04:11, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

There's been some discussion and pushback on this. Consensus seems to be that "band" is just as accurate for a vocal group. See here, and here. 162 etc. (talk) 04:37, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Oh, and I had also proposed that we just use "musical group" for everything and that didn't take off. See the 2021 discussion at the top of this talkpage. 162 etc. (talk) 04:41, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Yeah I've seen those big giant page move proposals in my travels.

I also saw the discussion from 2021 but it doesn't seem like the loop was actually closed... it would be a lot simpler to codify what is already the de-facto naming convention for boy bands, and then discuss moving the ~35 articles that currently use "group", versus continuing to use "group" and try to move the ~135 articles that use "band" to bring them in line with the "group" naming convention. RachelTensions (talk) 05:02, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

RfC about the naming conventions for boy bands

Should the naming convention for disambiguating boy bands be updated to be "(band)" instead of "(group)"? RachelTensions (talk) 22:51, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Survey

• Yes - Approximately 78% of boy band articles already use "(band)" when a disambiguation is necessary, despite "(group)" being the prescribed disambiguator for musical ensembles that do not play instruments in this naming convention (WP:BANDDAB).
  With such a large amount of boy bands already using "(band)" as the disambiguator despite "(group)" being the disambiguator per this naming convention, it demonstrates that "(band)" is the most natural method of disambiguation for boy bands. Not modifying the naming convention to be "(band)" to be used to disambiguate boy groups would mean that almost 80% of boy band articles are out of line with the naming convention.
  If almost 80% of articles are following a de facto naming convention that is contrary to what the de jure naming convention is, does the de jure naming convention still hold any weight for those articles? I don't think so – I think it indicates that the de jure naming convention isn't intuitive or natural for that subset of articles.
  See here for WP:RFCBEFORE attempt at a discussion that shows the breakdown of how I arrived at the 78% number. RachelTensions (talk) 22:51, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
• Yes - the article itself is called boy band, not boy group (which redirects to boy band), which is my main reason for arguing this viewpoint. On the other hand, girl group is the name of the article on Wikipedia. the wildfire update guy that also writes about other weather (talk) 22:53, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

  I think “band” is the most intuitive disambiguator for boy bands given the word is already included in name of that class of musical ensemble. That’s demonstrated by the fact that the vast majority of boy band articles (~80% of them) have already naturally settled on using “band”, not “group”, when disambugation is necessary.

  Girl groups, on the other hand, almost exclusively use “group” as a disambiguator, again, because it’s the most intuitive way to describe that type of musical ensemble: it’s already in the name. RachelTensions (talk) 17:02, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

• Yes - I don't think it should vary from how we'd disambiguate a rock/blues/whatever genre band just because their music is stylistically different. That, and the whole boy band thing... Sergecross73 msg me 16:53, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
• Yes - "band" is the common term for a musical group, plus it's right there in the name.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 19:01, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
• Yes, I think. WP:GDAB is a bit oddly structured, with a global statement that (band) is the most common disambiguator and then a list of "other methods" of disambiguation, which include the strangely absolute rule about (group). Suggest that the best patch might be to replace the current last sentence of the (group) paragraph with something like However, if a group is commonly referred to as a "band", even if it is an exclusively vocal group, "band" is preferred as a disambiguator. -- Visviva (talk) 05:34, 12 December 2024 (UTC)