899607: Command & Conquer Soundtrack Collection

[Medina]

I'm curious about the mention of "Command & Conquer: The Covert Operations" in the Represented Products field. The discs of this release correlate exactly with old soundtrack releases.

Disc 1: The Music of Command & Conquer
Disc 2: The Music of Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Disc 3: Command & Conquer Tiberian Sun Soundtrack
Disc 4: Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 - The Soundtrack

Other than Smash being twice as long here than it is on the original release of Red Alert, there's no differences in tracklists or songs featured. Since there's no mention of C&C Covert Operations anywhere else but here, it either isn't really featured in this set, or it's featured somewhere on these soundtracks as well and just not credited.

[Myrkul]

I think that's maybe because the Covert Ops add-on simply used the same music as the original C&C ? (haven't played the add-on so i don't know)

I don't think we should add it anyway since it's not mentioned anywhere.

[Medina]

Oh, interesting, now that I pay more attention to the first soundtrack's entry, I see this in the notes field:

All songs taken from the CD-ROM game 'Command & Conquer', except tracks 4, 8, 12, 14, 19 taken from the 'Command & Conquer : Covert Operations' game

So, maybe we should add it to that entry rather than subtract it from this one, since it seems those tracks are from that game specifically? If they're unique tracks, we should add it I think.

[SimonJXZ]

I'm having a hard time pinpointing the origin of the catalog number for this entry. The front tray and back tray each have a different number than the other, 899610 and 899620, respectively. What these have to do with anything, I don't know. What I don't see anywhere is 899607, which is what we have for the catalog number. Given that the discs each have different "catalog numbers" (perhaps printed on the matrix somewhere, they're not visible from the front), I think it's best to say that this doesn't actually have any sort of real "catalog number". I'm not sure what all these different numbers mean, but none of them seem to represent the full release somehow.

[MiLO]

I dunno, it's like - pick whichever one you like. 899607 is on Disc 1, it's visible [barely kinda] at the bottom right.

Here are all numbers so far:

899607 = Disc 1
899617 = Disc 2
899627 = Disc 3
899637 = Disc 4
899610 = Back Tray
899620 = Front Tray

Maybe 899607 was chosen because it also appears underneath barcode on the Back.

There was a similar situation with Tiberian Sun... bunch of different numbers.

[SimonJXZ]

Haha, yeah, I made my way to Tiberian Sun shortly after posting this.

Honestly, I feel that these are odd catalog numbers. Maybe I'm taking that classification a bit too... literally? To me, taking a certain chunk from the barcode number can help to identify a product, yes, but is it really a catalog number? Search for SQEX, SRCL, LACA, KICA, AVCD, SVWC... you'll get well over 100 results for all of them (KICA should probably be over 1000 even though it's not). I bet most of you can name each of those publishers, too. How is a number like 899607 an identifiable part of a publisher's catalog of releases? It's some kind of number attached to the release, sure, but... is it really what that field is talking about?

Here's one of probably many other good examples of what I'm talking about. This is just the barcode typed out along the spines. I understand that many of the publishers I listed do formulate their catalog numbers by using specific pieces of their barcodes, but that's different than just writing the barcode out along the side of the album. Also, I don't mean to make it sound like only companies with large catalogs are applicable; independent labels like Demetori and Dangerous Mezashi Cat have identifiable catalog numbers even without the use of barcodes.

At any rate, much thanks, MiLO, at least I now see where the number we have comes from.

[FrankBracelet51]

Front Tary and Back Tary, are they misplaced?