SID-8931: The Best of Babylon 5

[ᄐv๑–X²]

I have to question this entry, why the hell is this here? Babylon 5 is not an anime or cartoon, this is getting ridiculous.

[FPI]

Actually reading the information provided in the entry could help?

I recently saw the 1997 release in the database which differs from the 2001-version, which was previously added because of the presence of two music tracks related to the later cancelled video game "Babylon 5: Into the Fire" ~ and one of these two tracks is still present on this release. Personally I didn't even knew that two versions of this album existed. The old release apparantly also had trailer and interview content related to the video game, but by 2001 the game was history and the Main Theme was retitled to "Bonus Theme" on the new tracklist.

...and before you complain, even the old entry for the 1997 version aside, this isn't exactly the first time an album gets added with music to a never released video game. So, all good?

[ᄐv๑–X²]

So because it had 1 track of a vaporware game it's ok to have this in the database?

even though... it's clearly a 'best of' soundtrack for the TV-SERIES
even though... it doesn't explicitly say anything of the bonus track being featured in the cancelled game
even though... 17 TRACKS are for TV-SERIES that's not anime, manga, touhou, (forgot about sentai) western cartoons, comics, or vgm


I can think of several entries I can put in that lay in this gray area where out of 1/20 tracks of an album have vgm.


The whole Babylon 5 cancelled game is interesting, it's clearly historic to preserve that. I'm not being ignorant to it's existence, but just feels misplaced here. Unless I'm looking at this with the wrong pair of glasses.

What percentage of computer animation or hand drawn cartoon is needed of a show or movie to be considered as an 'animation' entry. 50% ? 68%? 82% or 100%?

Because fuck I'm thinking of putting the soundtrack of Who Framed Roger Rabbit here since it has like 56% animation with real life acting...

[dancey]

Originally Posted by ᄐv๑–X²

So because it had 1 track of a vaporware game it's ok to have this in the database?

1 > 0, so I believe that is fine.

Originally Posted by ᄐv๑–X²

What percentage of computer animation or hand drawn cartoon is needed of a show or movie to be considered as an 'animation' entry. 50% ? 68%? 82% or 100%?

You can't draw a line in the sand because it's just not that simple and there are way too many fringe cases/exceptions to the rule. It's clearly a case of "I put this in the DB because I want to put it in my collection", there's really no other justification. The series isn't related to a game, the artist isn't related to a game, and the artist isn't prolific enough to warrant the entry (imo). I've done the exact same thing in the past and had releases deleted because of afforementioned reasons (Taira no kiyomori taiga drama box set).

I think a lot of this can be probably be solved by allowing a free-text area in peoples collections for things of this nature. Otherwise just ignore it and let staff handle it.

[Efendija]

Originally Posted by ᄐv๑–X²

So because it had 1 track of a vaporware game it's ok to have this in the database?

Yes, it is enough.
https://vgmdb.net/forums/showpost.ph...60&postcount=3

[FPI]

Originally Posted by ᄐv๑–X²

So because it had 1 track of a vaporware game it's ok to have this in the database?

even though... it's clearly a 'best of' soundtrack for the TV-SERIES
even though... it doesn't explicitly say anything of the bonus track being featured in the cancelled game
even though... 17 TRACKS are for TV-SERIES that's not anime, manga, touhou, (forgot about sentai) western cartoons, comics, or vgm


I can think of several entries I can put in that lay in this gray area where out of 1/20 tracks of an album have vgm.

I don't think the fact that there's only one VGM-related track disqualifies this or any other entry. There are probably a bunch of single track releases in the database, or for example you have something like "Secret of Mana+" which also have only one track by your definition. Then I could think of albums such as "Donkey Kong Hits" or "Super Mario Hits" - they also contain only one track related to VGM (they both use the SML-remix by The Ambassadors of Funk) and the rest is a mainstream music compilation. Do these albums belong there? Definitely yes! Not because they are great (kind of depends on whether you like the mainstream songs on there I guess) but they provide information - for example if the DK Hits CD would appear on ebay you wouldn't exactly know whether this is worth getting or not - it shows a DKC-related cover and says "Donkey Kong Hits"... sounds great! Is it the DKC OST? In any case, the vgmdb entry gives a clear answer to that, so I'd say there is a point to these kind of entries - also for SoM+ or other singles you get the information about running times of the track, which could also help people figure out if a certain album is worth hunting down.

What percentage of computer animation or hand drawn cartoon is needed of a show or movie to be considered as an 'animation' entry. 50% ? 68%? 82% or 100%?

Because fuck I'm thinking of putting the soundtrack of Who Framed Roger Rabbit here since it has like 56% animation with real life acting...

Honestly, I think this is an interesting question, although I'm not the one who could give you a clear answer to that. My personal opinion would be yes, but not because it contains the score to the motion picture which to me at least is mostly a live action affair, but the latest Intrada-release also contains the music to the Roger Rabbit-shorts, and while these movies also include some short live action passages at the end, it's really most of all a cartoon, and therefore it qualifies. But I have no intention of adding this do the database, so I'm not the person to discuss this with in any way.

Originally Posted by dancey

It's clearly a case of "I put this in the DB because I want to put it in my collection", there's really no other justification.

Hm? I can see how this can appear this way, but this wasn't the reason for adding it at all. I have this release since quite some time and I knew from the start it contained a bonus track from the cancelled game, but I never came up with the idea of adding the album just because of that.

I found that other entry from the 1997-release by accident and thought at first this would be the release I have. Soon I realised that this wasn't the case and it became obvious that two different albums with the same title exist... and honestly I thought that was very interesting. The 1997 entry didn't provide that much background information, and even the old thread was mostly about the confusion that came up because the content of the disc seemed unclear, since you would find different (and overall very little) information about it on the web. For example I looked the album up on discogs and the entry there really is a mess and adds even more confusion, because they kind of mix the content of both releases together - this isn't exactly helpful. And having only one entry here on vgmdb adds to the confusion because again you get the impression that only one version exists. That was the main reason for me to add this, as an attempt to clarify these things and make it clear that there are indeed two versions.

Actually, I think the 1997-release must have been disrtibuted in two different ways anyway. On the entry here, you have a Front cover-scan which isn't really the front cover at all, but one of the booklet pages advertising the previous regular B5-albums. Than you have the back cover which looks like it comes from a regular release. Then you have the scan of the disc which looks like it was part of a bigger package provided by Sierra, as a bonus disc and promotional item for the upcoming game. It even says "CD 2" on the CD which clearly indicates that it was part of a bigger package. But does this fit all together? Not really - on the thread for the release you also have a link to amazon, where it becomes clear that they sold it in a more regular way, without any Sierra-stuff ~ this becomes evident not exactly because of the backcover-scan, but more importantly by the statement of one of the customers who complains about the "Best of" not really being a "Best of" because the fan-favourite "Dying Station"-theme from the last two episodes from the show is missing. Well, by 1997 these episodes didn't existed yet, so there was no way for this music to be on the disc. But the 2001-release gets rid of the short version of the Main theme for the unreleased game, and adds the Main Title for the 5th Season and the "Dying Station"-theme instead.

(In any case this makes it the superior version of this "Best of" and the last three tracks on the discs were the main reason for me buying it aczually. After all, pretty much everything before is just a compilation of the first two "Full" albums, and even the music coming from the episodic discs are pretty much covered on "Babylon 5 Vol.2" in the form of extended suites. So if you have the first two Volumes, not that much new here.)

Also, while the messy discogs-entry states otherwise, there is no enhanced content about the (by then) cancelled game on the 2001-release. Not surprising.