Penguin Album Discography feedback thread

[wetcamelfood]

As many of you may already be aware, Marty and I have been trying to clean up the Penguin Discography a little here:

http://www.fleetwoodmac.net/cgi-bin/...ie/do/find.cgi

and I just thought I’d start a thread here to get some feedback on it as we’d like to hear anything you’d like to see fixed/changed that we may have overlooked etc.

As far as errors go, we are aware that there are still a few pages missing that should be showing up there and there are a few pages that will be taken out (due to the Mac member in question not being on the album after all etc.) and the information on the new navigational system may not match up with what is currently in the “tracklisting pages” of the specific albums and we have not really touched on the other sections of the discography yet (singles, videos, etc.), just the albums for now.

Regarding “bootlegs” we plan to set up a “vintage bootleg” section wherein all of the current bootleg listings will go. We don’t see a point in adding current or future bootleg recordings in to the discography as in this Napster day and age of downloading and file sharing etc. there would simply be no way of cataloging such material anymore hence the “vintage bootlegs” section for the ones currently in the discography and I fully admit that I don’t really know much about bootleg recordings so if there are inaccuracies regarding any of those that are in there then please do let us know as that would be much appreciated to keep the data in the discography as correct as possible.

The “rule of thumb” for bootlegs in there as of now is that an item is considered “legit” if it was an item that can/could be bought from a retail outlet of some description in any country (though we realize that the laws of some European countries do permit the sale of “bootleg material”, those such items would still be kept in the vintage boots section just to help keep things tidy) so we have added the “radio show” type material (King biscuit etc.) in with the bootleg section as though they are probably legal to own going by an ebay frame of mind etc., they were never the things you could just walk in to a record store chain and “buy”. Items such as “Only rock and roll 1985-89” (& “75-79” etc.) will probably still say “radio show” on their respective tracklisting pages but those were actually “buy-able” items so they have been put in to the “regular” section.

We have kept the “promo giveaway” type albums in the “legit” section (such as the “...GLAAD awards” CD, “Stormy weather”, “Best buy tour ‘97” etc.). Right now though all of the bootleg items will be at the bottom of their respective sections (FM boots at the bottom of the “FM other appearances” section, SN boots at the bottom of SN’s solo albums section etc.) and the mentioned “vintage bootlegs” section will be set up shortly.

With the exception of the FM (and various members) tribute albums (Legacy, Blues for Greeny etc.) on which no FM member plays, the rest of the items in the discography (barring those few pages that we’ll need to take out and add in) have a FM member playing on the recording. We have tried to cross reference as many “non recording appearance” type pieces (due to them being in the discography anyways for the appearance on the recording of another Mac member) as we could. For instance, Stevie’s “solo guest appearances” discography will “point out” items such as Walter Egan’s “The lost album” (due to him covering “Sisters of the moon” on this album) and Rick Vito’s “Crazy cool” album (due to him covering “Love is dangerous”) though as stated, we have not had the chance yet to go through the tracklisting pages for those albums and state that “(Stevie) does not appear on (this) recording but (these people) covered (her song)” so one would know what the “level of involvement” is/was for those such items. “I” personally am a “recording appearance” only type of guy but we have decided to put in these kinds of facts so people won’t have to come to us later and say “hey you need to put this in” because we’ve done it already and we recognize that facts of this type are important to some fans and they feel these things should be pointed out. I admit that I’m not an expert on the songwriting credits etc. though so if there are any others that we may have overlooked then please do point them out!

We are also aware that in the cases of an artist having put out more than one album in a year, they may not be “sorting” correctly in the reverse chronological order in which we would like them to but unfortunately, as of now, this appears to be something that can not be fixed so we have tried to "fix" this by putting in the month of release next to the year of release on those albums that fall in to this area to at least show that we are aware that they aren’t sorting correctly but we are at least making the attempt of passing on more specific release date data so those surfing the discography will have access to the correct information, even if it is not sorting that way. There were many items in this respect that we could not obtain specific release date information on so if you see two albums by the same artists released in the same year and it does not have the month of release next to them and you know this information then please do let us know here so that can be added in to show our “awareness” of these kinds of discrepancies so we can make them appear as correct as possible for everyone.

As we have the section of the discography already listing as many “covers only” as has been done of songs written by FM members here (which again, has not been checked over yet):

http://www.fleetwoodmac.net/penguin/fmcovers.htm

...we won’t be putting items such as the Dixie Chick’s “Home” album for their version of “Landslide” in the discography as listings such as this would go in this above linked section (but we have put in the “Divas Las Vegas“ CD as Stevie actually appears on THAT version of it). Just so you know that items such as “Home” we “don’t need to know about” in so far as the album section of the discography goes.

Another “rule of thumb” we are using is that if we have a biography at The Penguin on somebody (such as George Hawkins Jr., Todd Sharp, etc.) and they have appeared on any of the albums in the discography then we are trying to keep a note of their appearances on those items as well so the search feature can be well utilized. We have also included those artists that have had a Q & A at The Penguin and we have also given those artists that have five or more albums in the discography (such as Walter Egan, John Stewart, etc.) their own section of the “other artists” areas in addition to the “other bands” that the various FM members have been in over the years (such as Traffic, Paris, Tramp, John Mayall(’s Bluesbreakers) etc.) to help show that their “appearances” on those such albums will (in most cases) have had a greater impact (as they had sung lead, written songs and generally taken a bigger part in those projects due to their being members of those bands) as opposed to a true “guest appearance” only kind of project that you will find in each members discography in their “Other Artists/Various” sections.

Technically, there will be artists you will come across there such as say, Warren Zevon who will have 5 albums (counting compilations) but we didn’t think he had a close enough affiliation with FM to warrant giving him his “own section” but by all means, if anyone feels this is unjust or if we may have overlooked someone else that you think should fall in to this category then please do let us know about it here and we can hash it around.

We have taken a break from new additions for the time being so we can get as much straightened away on the current listings as we can but I still have about 60 or so items that I will be formatting for Marty which he will put on the site in the coming months (mainly more Dave Mason & Bekka guest appearance type material) but once you see that taking place again, if you know of anything the various members have played on that we
may have overlooked then please do submit it at that time.

For now though, we would like to hear from you here after you have the chance to look things over at the album discography to see what you like/don’t like and we can talk it over and hash out any areas the majority may not be happy with and based on the
feedback we get here, I can set up polls so we can determine what the “most popular choices” are. We’re aware that the ledge does not constitute nearly the amount of people that visit the Penguin website on a daily basis but at least the feedback we get here will give us “some” scope as to what people would like to see in the discography and if it is possible to be able to provide such ideas to the visitors of the this site’s discography.

Sorry for my usual long notes again but I just wanted to bring you all up to speed as to the areas we’re aware of that still need to be changed so that way any areas that are pointed out that don’t fall in to any of the above categories may well have been something we have overlooked so then we can fix/change it accordingly.

There’s no “time limit” on this I guess but the longer that goes on without any comments we will just assume that you are happy with what you are seeing over there and we want as many Mac fans as possible to be happy so please do let us know what you’d like to see in the album discography. Although we are both busy with tidying things up there, I'll try and stop in here as often as I can to see what's up. OK?

We’re looking forward to your comments.

John