Talk:Cut the Cake (album)

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Albums, an attempt at building a useful resource on recordings from a variety of genres. If you would like to participate, visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.AlbumsWikipedia:WikiProject AlbumsTemplate:WikiProject AlbumsAlbum articles

R&B and Soul Music Stub‑class

	R&B and Soul Music portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject R&B and Soul Music, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of R&B and Soul Music articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.R&B and Soul MusicWikipedia:WikiProject R&B and Soul MusicTemplate:WikiProject R&B and Soul MusicR&B and Soul Music articles
Stub	This article has been given a rating which conflicts with the project-independent quality rating in the banner shell. Please resolve this conflict if possible.
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

track listing formatting

On Jan 20, 2011 a contributor changed the track listing formatting of the article

from
Side one

"song1"
"song2"
...

Side two

"song6"
"song7"
...

to

/A1 - "song1"
/A2 - "song2"
/A3 - "song3"
/A4 - "song4"
/A5 - "song5"
/B1 - "song6"
/B2 - "song7"
/B3...

I have never seen this type of formatting before and it doesn't seem appropriate to me (at first glance) for a couple of reasons:

It doesn't seem to be necessary (no new information is added)
It may even add confusion (why the double numbering scheme? What's it "mean"?)
It doesn't seem to conform to any "track listing" guidelines at Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Article body

If the contributor was trying to provide CD track numbers together with the original LP track numbers, my reaction would be that this is probably (a) unnecessary and (b) not clear / unambiguous. The current wikipedia consensus on this topic, according to WP:Albums / Article Body,

"Albums originally released primarily on vinyl or cassette should similarly list the tracks of each side separately under sub-headings named "Side one" and "Side two"."

If there is a wish to change these guidelines, it should probably first be discussed/debated at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums page.

My reading of the Wikiproject:Albums guidelines implies that track listings should reflect the original released format of the album. This means in general, for most albums released before CDs became dominant (sometime between 1983 and 1990?) should probably list tracks in the dominant format of the original release - e.g. LP (side one / side two) format for pre-1983 albums like Cut the Cake.

In cases where the CD release track order is very different from the original LP release track order, then a separate listing of CD tracks is probably a reasonable way to go - and this is fairly commonly done in many Wikipedia album articles. Pugetbill (talk) 18:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]