OMNIMUSIC album release dates and random composer names

[Psyclon]

I am not sure if this should go into the database thread, but I think I might ask here.

I am somewhat lost. As I added a few more OMNIMUSIC tracks, I juggled with the APM website, Discogs, Spotify/Apple Music (for the album covers) and the Fandom website.
And...I have a big problem with the release dates! Because both APM and Spotify/Apple Music show year X and Discogs and the Fandom show year Y.

I remember I was taking the information of the APM webpage because, hey, it's their stock and I expect the master company to have right dates listed. And I am sure they take those informations over to Apple and Spotify.

However, I also think the people owning the disks and especially the LPs can read the sleeve, as on the latter, it's written in big numbers. So I thought I can take what Discogs and the Fandom says.

Now I am confused and I just want to pick the right dates for my OMNIMUSIC gems - are there re-issues? How trustworthy is the Fandom? I'd like to use the Fandom to correct my release dates, but I still kind of hesitate. Over the years I got used to certain tracks "sounding 1986". Suddenly, they are from 1992. Tracks dated on APM on early 1990s are suddenly at the end - 1998. Audio-wise, it's hard to really discern, because this "disco rock" style can be equally from 1980 or 1984.

What do you guys and gals think what to do? Reading (C) 1999 at Spotify.com on a 2003 album according to the Fandom makes me a bit uncomfortable in that matter. Also, I also expect when a website like APM lists exact release dates, such as Febuary 17th of 1989, it gives me confidence that these dates are the correct ones..

The same goes on with the names. Many albums are on APM listed as created by "Mark W. Wood". But on Discogs, there is a Mark Wood and associated to these albums, but where the heck comes the "W." from? Is APM making up names, but why would they do that?!

Right now, I halt everything until one or two could nudge me into the right direction. It kinda sucks because I hate it when the data integrity is not given... I am already miffed by the re-issued album covers for many, but I can kind of live with that.

Please help 

[Mr]

Interesting conundrum!

First of all, remember that both Discogs and Fandom ('wikia') are user-submitted sites. If you care about information being correct, you should approach them both with a bit of healthy skepticism.


Dates
As far as I am aware, Fandom doesn't list any sources for its information, and as such isn't really reliable. Similarly, the dates listed in the Discogs entries themselves should not be trusted blindly, these are often incorrect - when sourcing dates from Discogs, you should check the photos, rather than the entry itself.

Generally for LPs, the date (if listed) is usually mentioned on the vinyl labels, and as far as I'm aware there are printed dates on all the Omnimusic LPs, such as this:


- similarly, the Omnimusic CDs have their dates printed on the disc:



As you mention, you'd expect APM's site to have correct info - but I've unfortunately found discrepancies with dates and sometimes also other info between the digital reissues of material on their site, and its original release. In my experience, the digital reissue info isn't wildly incorrect, so it can be used as a good placeholder or approximation until a better source is found.
- Seeking out the original release is however your best bet.

I'm aware that it's unfortunately not complete at the moment, but I can vouch for the dates listed in the Omnimusic thread - unless otherwise specified, I only source dates from the releases themselves.


Composers
For composer, artists and names in general, Discogs again shouldn't be trusted blindly. I've seen cases where a release will list, say, "M. Wood" and the Discogs submitter will straight-up guess what the first name of the person is, often incorrectly. Again, you should check the photos; what does the release actually say?

Unlike the dates, in my experience the composer info listed on digital reissues (on APM and the likes) is generally correct, and can be trusted.

We have a great database of composer's names and pseudonyms here on LMT if you'd like to check or double check such info, as well:
https://librarymusicthemes.com/index.php?board=12.0

[Psyclon]

Amazing to get this "nudge" I wanted but honestly didn't expect!
Especially from you, Mr. (a.k.a. The Database), it feels very good and I will take the APM dates now, and their composer's names too.

I was a little bit "shocked" to find out that my tracks I played as 1986 were suddenly 1992 and early 90s albums turned 1998, with one even reaching deep into the early 00s. I know it sounds strange to get stuck up by such things, but when I play music from the mid-80s, I'd like to be sure about that.

To be honest, with many "released" fields being empty at Discogs, I thought they'd just enter it if known and if it's actually there, it's correct. I can only assume that both Discogs and Fandom are maybe cross-sharing information and each relies on the other side to be factually true. APM has those very specific dates going on, such as 21/03/1987, which I always found oddly precise to be "not true", especially some albums just have 01/01/1980 which would mean they also admit when they have just the year. On the other hand, re-issues they take blindly for their release date, such as old LPs being labelled as 2018 - they often at least put the right dates in the track description (e.g. SONOTON VAULT has this information, such as "Vintage recording from 1982".

I am just scratching my head why the Fandom has dates for almost all entries while Discogs hasn't, kind of a "too nice to be true" moment, but who would do such a thing? Who would go randomly onto such an innocent website and enter random years which in itself are plausible too?

Another strange thing is when I first tagged my files - somewhere in 2020 - I put the dates from their actual suppliers (APM, KPM, SONOFIND). When I got the chance to replace those demos with actual MP3s sourced from the WAVs*, I just copied the informations over. So it came that one album of Omnimusic had a release date of 1980, but was listed on both Discogs and Fandom as 1984. When I created this post, I even mentioned that album and wanted to take a "proof screenshot" - just to see it's 1984 on APM too. So even APM has changed their information somewhere in the past 3 years; I'd never put 1980 by myself there in the first place. Another quirk is that OMNI-LP are all matching from all APM, Discogs and the Fandom, but the CD releases are completely randomized.

* The WAV files also have tags themselves and they even say OMNI is from 2019. That is most likely when they ripped their disks and the software is called "Soundminer" which also felt the need to crap into the id tags

I will follow your suggestion and take both the names and the release year from APM unless I can make out the release date on a screenshot of a physical medium from Discogs, eBay et cetera. Fortunately, "only" 39 tracks to re-tag

EDIT 2: So far, the years on the Fandom make more sense then the APM dates, still trying to figure out if re-issues are the - heh - issue here.... Ugh!! I was suspicous because tracks like "Technical Vice" (OMN33) could be a nod to MIAMI VICE, which was not even released at the date of the alleged APM release [August 84], it has been aired in September the same year. The Fandom copyright and discogs screenshot show '88, which of course make more sense, meaning APM is wrong - or they didn't mean Miami Vice with the style, even though it kinda does...

However, I found another quirk. The album PRECISION (OMN 75) is labelled as 1990 on APM. Discogs has a clear screenshot of MCMXCIV on the disk. The disk has the same funky blue architectural cover thingy going on as on APM - however, the Fandom has the "icon codes" listed (Technology/Business, the typical OMNIMUSIC square icon things). How can the fandom know that when the cover is a random image and not the typical icons? That smells like a re-issue, which makes 1990 plausible as the original publishing date, making APM correct...

Rocksports 2 has a CD copyright of 1989, it can be seen. The user on Discogs mentions "Re-issue of 1985 album". Wow, APM actually shows 1985. Which... makes APM correct now..

To be fair, I think nobody can really solve this, as official disk copyrights mean jack with OMNIMUSIC and their random, 1:1 re-issues of material...