[CHz]

I've been thinking about this since the Shinsekai Gakkyoku Zatsugidan/Neo Geo Music Performance Group fixup.

A few game companies have a collective term for their sound staff that's used instead of individual composers for games: Konami Kukeiha Club, etc. Some of these companies also have in-house bands that perform arrangements of their music: Kukeiha Club, etc.

I am going to make a list of these for two reasons. The first is that I think it'd just be nice to have, since I don't think there's a list like this anywhere else. The second will be presented in a minute.

• Capcom
  Composers: Capcom Sound Team Alph Lyla
  Band: Capcom Sound Team Alph Lyla (is there any distinction between Capcom Sound Team Alph Lyla and Alph Lyla?)
• Data East
  Composers: Gamadelic
  Band: Gamadelic
• Falcom
  Composers: Falcom Sound Team jdk
  Band: dunno if there were actually any in-house groups, but there are a bunch of performance groups on their fifty trillion arrangement albums: J.D.K. Band, Pre-Project, etc.
• Konami
  Composers: Konami Kukeiha Club
  Band: Kukeiha Club
• Sega
  Composers: we have a Sega Sound Team (S.S.T.) entry, but I don't know the extent to which that was officially used
  Bands: S.S.T. Band, H.
• SNK
  Composers: Shinsekai Gakkyoku Zatsugidan
  Band: none; all performance was done by outside people, AFAIK
• Square
  Composers: no group name
  Band: The Black Mages, Star Onions
• Taito
  Composers: Zuntata
  Band: Zuntata

I'm definitely up for corrections and additions to this.

The important bits are Taito and Data East (and Capcom, assuming those names are currect, because I'm not 100% on them): the sound teams and bands have the same name. I think this distinction should be annotated somehow, because they are two fundamentally different entities: a collective composition group and a performance group with mostly members from the composition group (as well as members who aren't). However, having two groups with the same names and very similar members could lead to big time confusion. Here's my proposal, using Zuntata as an example:

1. Make two artist entries: "Zuntata (composition)" and "Zuntata (performance)," or something along those lines. The current Zuntata artist could just be renamed to one of them.
2. Sort out the associations to the right groups, and link all of them with aliases of "Zuntata." If there are any albums out there credited to something like "Taito Sound Team," then obviously that should be used as an alias to the composition group instead.
3. We now have a conflict for "Zuntata," but this is a good thing. Whenever a new album is added or linked to "Zuntata," the linker will have to choose between "Zuntata (composition)" and "Zuntata (performance)" from the dropdown box, making it very clear which Zuntata is being linked to.

Thoughts on this?