Do you know what the CDDB is? If not, you can read about it here. If so, you know the experience: you put a CD into your computer, & as a program like iTunes reads it, it queries the database & returns the CD's tracklisting, artist name, album name, genre, etc.
There are some real numbnuts out there who take delight in propagating incorrect names - or misspelled names - or other idiot errors when putting the data into the database. This isn't a complaint about them. Most of the time, their errors are easy to fix - especially if you know how common words in English are spelled, or if you have the frickin' CD in front of you & can see how the two separate tracklistings match up. Anyway, to complain about that would take too long.
No, this is a complaint about a particular spelling error that has popped up in many of the CDs I've listened to in regards to this week's show. It has to do with the way Americans spell the word "neighbor," as opposed to how the British & the Canadians spell it, which is "neighbour."
Want to argue about which is the correct spelling? Too bad! You can't. One nation spells it one way, some others (all associated with a dead empire) spell it the other. I have no problem with that. If you're visiting Boston from Toronto, you'll perhaps learn about the exciting history around Boston Harbor. If you're visiting Victoria, British Columbia, from Seattle, you may enjoy spending time at the Victoria Harbour. The way the people spell it is how you spell it, despite how insistent my (American) spellcheck is that I'm misspelling "harbor."
Here's the rub. If you're some dude in Montreal & you get to be the first people to enter into the CDDB let's say Jonathan Richman's CD "Jonathan Sings!" & you get to the track "The Neighbors," spell it the way it is on the CD. It's not "The Neighbours." It isn't. If Jonathan Richman had a track called "Muzza Fazza Babba," you'd copy it exactly that way, wouldn't you? You wouldn't assume he means "Mother Father Baby" & put that into the database, right? What's more, you don't grammar correct song titles, do you? Like, you wouldn't enter the song "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" as "I Can't Get Any Satisfaction," would you?
It seems as disrespectful as it is irritating. & I noticed it over & over & over when I listened to CDs for this week's show.
Interestingly, I hardly ever - maybe never - saw the opposite. I never had a CD by an English, Scottish, Canadian, Australian, or New Zealand band where the CDDB spelled a track "neighbor" instead of "neighbour." I wonder what's up with that. I guess respect isn't always a two-way street.
No one who enters shit into the CDDB will ever read this, but if they do, here's a thing: just put the names of the songs & the band & the record down as it says on the damned CD please. When you see the playlist of songs from the show tomorrow, you'll see the two different spellings, & you'll know whether the band is American or from a former British colony. Because that's how the artists who made the music spelled it. Not you, sitting at your computer, being all pedantic & shit.
While we're at it, can you also look up when the actual album was released & not the year your version came out? This pertains to reissues, of course, but also, use your damn common sense. How much more difficult is it to take the time to find out when something was actually recorded than just the lazy copyright on the CD's back cover? If you're not going to do that, don't submit the info to the database. You aren't being helpful. You're passing on bad information that most probably is going to stay there, because I don't think people at the CDDB check any of it anyway.
Which is probably the real shame.
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