Tracking Changes to the Official Albums


there were actually 2 versions of the Disneyland 45th Anniversary album, the only difference being Parade of the Stars which was only on version 2
 

Tannerman

Member
I've thought about returning to this project, as I haven't quite finished the chart with the changes. Couple thoughts I wanted to throw out to the community, however:

1. What is considered an "Official Album"?

Are these just what we consider to be compilations from the parks? It's obvious that the DL and WDW-branded "Official Albums" are on this list. But what about "A Musical History of Disneyland"? How about "Music from Disney's Animal Kingdom Park"? I'd like to keep this list focused, and we all know there are a zillion other albums we could throw into this list (ride-specific, show-specific, event-specific, etc)

2. What do you consider a "change" in tracks?

There are situations where the same basic track appears on multiple albums, but do to time tracking, the count may be off when doing an A vs. B comparison. Additionally, there are some situations where there is a bleed of sound from a previous track before and/or after a track, even though the core track is the same. Obviously there are differences here, but the core track is the same (for the time being, I've just been footnoting these tracks noting the bleed)

3. Track Origins

For example, some tracks debuted in non-Official Album contexts. There were 2 theme park-related tracks on the 1978 "Magical Music of the Mouse" collection which were later used on Official Albums. Do we just measure when they appeared on the first official "Official Album" (i.e. 1980) or make exceptions for situations like this.

Your thoughts are welcomed. Overall, I'd like this reference to be targeted with a defined niche and canon to pull from. It's defining some of those rules that I need some help on B)

Thanks,
Steve
 

almandot

Member
You really might as well include every official release. The semi-yearly souvenir albums are really what we refer to as OAs but any specifically park related CD that gets put out is one too (Fantasmic, DEP, 6 disc set, Wishes, yadda)
 

Gurgitoy2

Active Member
there were actually 2 versions of the Disneyland 45th Anniversary album, the only difference being Parade of the Stars which was only on version 2
Are you sure about this? I know this was the case for the 2001 "Official Album", but I believe there was only one 45th Anniversary album.
 
oops your right while the 2 CD's are almost identical w/ the latter including "Parade Of The Stars" i didn't realize they were released a year apart
 

Gurgitoy2

Active Member
Personally, I think it's pointless to include every park release. The thing with everything not listed as an "official album", they were one-off's. It would be hard to track changes to something like "Magic in the Streets: Parade Memories", or "A Musical Souvenir of the Magic Kingdom". Sure, some tracks appeared on OA's, but once you start including everything, you're going down the rabbit hole.

You could note where a specific track originated if it didn't show up on an OA first. However, I think sticking to releases labeled "Official Album" would be easier, since those are released periodically with updates, hence the creation of this topic.
 

Tannerman

Member
Personally, I think it's pointless to include every park release. The thing with everything not listed as an "official album", they were one-off's. It would be hard to track changes to something like "Magic in the Streets: Parade Memories", or "A Musical Souvenir of the Magic Kingdom". Sure, some tracks appeared on OA's, but once you start including everything, you're going down the rabbit hole.

You could note where a specific track originated if it didn't show up on an OA first. However, I think sticking to releases labeled "Official Album" would be easier, since those are released periodically with updates, hence the creation of this topic.
Personally, I'm leaning this direction. The idea of footnoting the origins of a song if it wasn't on an OA is a solid one and fits with the approach we're already doing. And frankly, I'd like to avoid the rabbit hole B)
 

almandot

Member
I wasn't saying to include everything for the purposes of tracking changes to the original tracks.. which I guess was the intent. I just meant for the purposes of cataloguing everything which I'm not sure has been done(other than maybe the store on laughingplace)
 

Tannerman

Member
I wasn't saying to include everything for the purposes of tracking changes to the original tracks.. which I guess was the intent. I just meant for the purposes of cataloguing everything which I'm not sure has been done(other than maybe the store on laughingplace)
My goal is to simply answer the question, "So what has changed on this Official Album?" Which then prompts the next question, "Well, if I'm looking for 'Song X', which albums did it appear on?" And hopefully do it in a quick-to-read form. B)

It's defining the "universe of OAs" that needs to be set regarding what is/is not included in this simple resource. I'll leave all the heavy-duty music analysis, playlist tracking, and Shazam-using to you all!
 

Gurgitoy2

Active Member
I wasn't saying to include everything for the purposes of tracking changes to the original tracks.. which I guess was the intent. I just meant for the purposes of cataloguing everything which I'm not sure has been done(other than maybe the store on laughingplace)

Yeah, I know what you're getting at, and it's a good idea. Something like Trent had in the beginning of this site. An album listing of everything. He stopped updating it in 1999 or so, but up until that point, it was a great resource for all park releases. We haven't had something like that in quite a while though, and it would be a big undertaking. Useful, but time-consuming!
 

Emcduck

Playlist Author
Personally, I think it's pointless to include every park release. The thing with everything not listed as an "official album", they were one-off's. It would be hard to track changes to something like "Magic in the Streets: Parade Memories", or "A Musical Souvenir of the Magic Kingdom". Sure, some tracks appeared on OA's, but once you start including everything, you're going down the rabbit hole.

You could note where a specific track originated if it didn't show up on an OA first. However, I think sticking to releases labeled "Official Album" would be easier, since those are released periodically with updates, hence the creation of this topic.
Personally, I'm leaning this direction. The idea of footnoting the origins of a song if it wasn't on an OA is a solid one and fits with the approach we're already doing. And frankly, I'd like to avoid the rabbit hole B)

Perhaps this is a good project for me. I've been wanting to help out since I first found out that I wasn't crazy just because I wanted to find out what music was being played a the parks and resorts. That there was a group of people out there getting the strange looks etc while trying to identify that song. Start out somewhat limited with some of the CDs already mentioned (they are already in my collection) and see what shakes out from there. I could start : magic in the streets, musical history of Disneyland, Special event music, and the Music from Animal Kingdom Park.

What program are you using (sounded like excel,... which version?) How about headings? that way if Jay wants to eventually combine the projects for inclusion in the cover art database it would be a simple thing for him to do.
 

Emcduck

Playlist Author
I've thought about returning to this project, as I haven't quite finished the chart with the changes. Couple thoughts I wanted to throw out to the community, however:

1. What is considered an "Official Album"?

Are these just what we consider to be compilations from the parks? It's obvious that the DL and WDW-branded "Official Albums" are on this list. But what about "A Musical History of Disneyland"? How about "Music from Disney's Animal Kingdom Park"? I'd like to keep this list focused, and we all know there are a zillion other albums we could throw into this list (ride-specific, show-specific, event-specific, etc)

2. What do you consider a "change" in tracks?

There are situations where the same basic track appears on multiple albums, but do to time tracking, the count may be off when doing an A vs. B comparison. Additionally, there are some situations where there is a bleed of sound from a previous track before and/or after a track, even though the core track is the same. Obviously there are differences here, but the core track is the same (for the time being, I've just been footnoting these tracks noting the bleed)

3. Track Origins

For example, some tracks debuted in non-Official Album contexts. There were 2 theme park-related tracks on the 1978 "Magical Music of the Mouse" collection which were later used on Official Albums. Do we just measure when they appeared on the first official "Official Album" (i.e. 1980) or make exceptions for situations like this.

Your thoughts are welcomed. Overall, I'd like this reference to be targeted with a defined niche and canon to pull from. It's defining some of those rules that I need some help on B)

Thanks,
Steve


What is considered an "Official Album"?
My opinions:
(1) Available for purchase from the parks
(2) containing music used in the parks
(3) Released by a Disney owned Label
(4) containing music not available anywhere else...
Should eventually fall under the heading. An album like Music from Disney's Animal Kingdom park would qualify As it meets all of the criteria.

However I feel that it should contain sub-categories. For Example:
"Official Album Project"
  1. Official Album (WDW: THE HAPPIEST CELEBRATION ON EARTH)
  2. Park Specific (Music from Disney's Animal Kingdom Park, Fantasmic)
  3. Event Specific (Pirate and Princess Party CD)
  4. Ride Specific (Pirates of the Caribbean)
  5. Historical (Musical History of Disneyland)
  6. Ancillary Entertainment (if you wanted to include an area for cds such as British Invasion, or Firehouse Five At Disneyland...)
What do you consider a "change" in tracks?

Personally I look for a noticeable change in the track itself, and would say a change that is enough that someone might consider buying the CD for the new version
A 1.2 second difference in the dead space at the end of the track itself is not a major enough change to notice. An example would be the "its a small world" tracks, some are about 2 minutes in length and only go through the basic lyric. then there are longer versions that will include the lyrics in one or two other languages. That is very noticeable as the song is more complete.

Track Origins
"There were 2 theme park-related tracks on the 1978 "Magical Music of the Mouse" collection which were later used on Official Albums."
If you have it broken into categories then you as the person working on the Main Category of Official Album would simply include it as it appears on just the Official Albums. Then whoever is working on the Historical albums would enter the songs on their area.

Hope that is helpful
 

Emcduck

Playlist Author
OK. Well since I've seen nothing back, I'll just hold off then. Crawl back into my corner and continue just organizing my collection for now.
 

eyore

DLRP explorer
Playlist Author
OK. Well since I've seen nothing back, I'll just hold off then. Crawl back into my corner and continue just organizing my collection for now.

OK, just so you know we are not just ignoring you :lol:

I think items 3 and 4 are too vague as it doesn't specify what sort of album (ie needn't even be park related).
Would, for instance, the old Mickey Mouse Club vinyls be regarded as official albums?
They were released officially but are not park related.
It may seem obvious but I think it's important to include the relationship to a park.

A change of track would be just that for me - ANY change be it length, version, remix etc.
A change is a change although it would be helpful to actually state what the change was.
If a BGM suddenly added a track or two or changed it around (like Colonel Hathi's did in the mid-90's when it changed from Explorer Club) I'd want to know what the changes were and also the fact that there had been two loops - even if the newer one contained at least half of the old one (which it does).
I never think it a good idea to leave something out so even a reissue of an identical previous CD is historically important otherwise it's a little like leaving out a few ex-presidents because they didn't do much or last long in office in the history of the USA. ;)
 

Emcduck

Playlist Author
OK. Well since I've seen nothing back, I'll just hold off then. Crawl back into my corner and continue just organizing my collection for now.

OK, just so you know we are not just ignoring you :lol:

I think items 3 and 4 are too vague as it doesn't specify what sort of album (ie needn't even be park related).
Would, for instance, the old Mickey Mouse Club vinyls be regarded as official albums?
They were released officially but are not park related.
It may seem obvious but I think it's important to include the relationship to a park.

A change of track would be just that for me - ANY change be it length, version, remix etc.
A change is a change although it would be helpful to actually state what the change was.
If a BGM suddenly added a track or two or changed it around (like Colonel Hathi's did in the mid-90's when it changed from Explorer Club) I'd want to know what the changes were and also the fact that there had been two loops - even if the newer one contained at least half of the old one (which it does).
I never think it a good idea to leave something out so even a reissue of an identical previous CD is historically important otherwise it's a little like leaving out a few ex-presidents because they didn't do much or last long in office in the history of the USA. ;)

Ah, my old friend Eyore! How are you?
Ignoring me is Ok, heck my kids do it all the time :lol:

As for the 4 points, I would envision them as (more) guidelines (than actual rules) :rolleyes:

it to be something that would require all of the criteria to have been met. (at least for the sake of discussion.) Since I would suggest that further discussion would be warranted to establish what qualifies as Official album and what doesn't.

Perhaps clarification is needed on my suggestion...

Pulling a representative sample from my collection and what I considered to be in some form arguably "Official"

(1) Available for purchase from the parks....
While there are many CDs available at the parks, I notice that some are marked as "Theme Park Exclusive" and even if they aren't you won't find them on sale at a common retailer. No Walmart, Virgin Megastore, etc. because no retailer is authorized to sell them.

(2) containing music used in the parks.... I would expand this to the focus of the album needs to be music actually and officially used in the parks. (which covers this point that you made: It may seem obvious but I think it's important to include the relationship to a park.)

(3) Released by a Disney owned Label... Narrow this one down too. In my representative sample (16), there are only Three Record Labels on albums since 1992
  • Walt Disney Records, (9)
  • Walt Disney Music Company, (2)
  • Buena Vista Records (5)
  • I have found references to older releases On vinyl for example on Disneyland Records.
Perhaps "Official" albums should be limited to these four labels?

(4) containing music not available anywhere else. Perhaps should merge with number 1 above.

So the new set would be
(1) Must be available exclusively for purchase through one of the Walt Disney Companies when new. Preferably a Walt Disney theme park or resort.
(2) Must focus exclusively on tracks actually used in an official capacity at a Disney Resort or Theme Park
(3) Must be released under one of the following record labels:
  • Walt Disney Records
  • Walt Disney Music Company
  • Buena Vista Records
  • Disneyland Records.
(4) Must State one of the following on the cover
  • "Official Album"
  • "Original Attraction Soundtrack"
  • Resort Name (ie. Walt Disney World, Disneyland)
  • Park Name (ie. Animal Kingdom, EPCOT)
  • Attraction Name (ie. The Haunted Mansion, Finding Nemo the Musical)
Hopefully that is better.

Now, looking at the rest of your post, I would say that if the idea is to track every change, no matter how small, (including just an album art change) that those four may in fact be opening the door too much. In which case I would consider limiting it to having "Official Album" on there somewhere. This would of course exclude specialized releases such as Animal Kingdom, Illuminations, Main Street Electrical Parade... Simply tracking the differences between the vinyl / cassette / CD versions for some years could be a daunting task, as could obtaining a copy of each to be sure that you are using a first hand source.

Including the other types could still be do-able if there were separate people specializing on separate areas under a larger umbrella. As it would be a shame to exclude the other offerings that the Disney comapnay has placed before us. And overall, it would be nice to be able to have a database where any of those pieces of information were available.
 

eyore

DLRP explorer
Playlist Author
Whilst an entire history of everything Disney has ever put out there would be a good idea, I doubt it would work in practice.
There is a plethora of kids CDs put out by Disney with the voices of Mickey and the gang singing songs etc plus the many CDs containing music from the soundtracks and these are often country specific anyway (a lot of stuff gets released only in the US or only in the UK, for instance - I first joined here looking for a specific CD which, I later found out, was not only specific to the UK but also to just one chain of stores - I even had the bar code for it!). That, I think, is a step too far.
Park music on the other hand is a project well worth doing but, just like the playlists, there's no point in doing it (to my mind) unless every change is cataloged.
If, for example, the MSEP is released on a park album in one year and reproduced (minus a few bars) some years later, that should be noted as it's a change. Actually I hadn't thought of album art but again, that's important (how many of us have bought something thinking it's new only to realize later it was just the album art? I certainly have and especially in the parks when I have not had access to a CD player until I got home).
OK, it would only be a footnote (re-released 2010 with new album art/re-release of 1985 album ref xyz with new album art).
Maybe being involved in compiling the playlists has made me a little too pedantic :blink:
 

Emcduck

Playlist Author
Park music wise, it think it would be a great project. Sure it would take years, but when you get addicted to the sounds of the parks, it is really a labor (or Labour for my UK friends) of love. ;)

You are right, there are many times that I am looking for a particular song, and it turns out that even though it played at Disneyland since I was little, it was only released once and, then on a Tokyo Disneyland (exclusive) CD, and of course, good luck finding it. So I know that frustration.

I am finally just making headway on my collection, and it gets very frustrating to have all of the tracks except one or two in a BGM loop and of course tracking down that one album is proving to be like looking for the Grail.

I have had some recent experience with the change in album art. For some reason, my copy of iTunes isn't doing so well at grabbing album art, and as I was looking for the appropriate artwork for one of my Official Albums, I found that there was two album covers. The essential picture is the same, but the background color is different. (I think one is Red and one was a dark Blue) So that was why it popped immediately into mind.

So looking at the entire catalog of changes idea, it seems that it would work best opening it up to a "wiki" type approach, while there would be someone to oversee the project. I offer that as a suggestion due to the fact that I would guess that the cost would be prohibitive for even a couple of people to undertake it, however, I have several versions, Sounds as if you do as well, and Probably between all of us we have a very good start. The person overseeing the project would make sure that the final product would remain in the same format.

The issue here would be how to tell what little changes occurred between albums. If I have the 1989 and 1990 version it would be a very easy thing to decide if the Yo Ho song has changed. But how to check it between your copy of the 1988 and 1991 versions.

The fantastic thing is no matter what is decided, that there is a very intelligent group on this site, and they all take this quite seriously, so the quality will be top notch. I would be happy to be a part of it.

I have a bit of web space available on a site I set up for my blog (I keep my friends up on my move to Alaska on it) If you want to play with some Ideas, so that it doesn't wreak havoc on a good, established site (like this one) plus give a sandbox to try ideas on if that would help.
 

Emcduck

Playlist Author
Eyore, Please check your PMs :)
 

Emcduck

Playlist Author
You know, looking around the forum today and someone has really sort of started something over at wikipedia.

List of Disney theme park albums

It could use a little fleshing out, but it appears to be already started. So that raises the question does it fit the bill? I usually tend to take wikipedia's articles with a grain of salt and move on.

I would rather like to see a project from this community because I don't believe that it covers all of the information and aspects that we would approach it from, or in the detail that we could cover it from. For instance they deleted the article on Disneyland's Fantasmic because it was a "non-notable limited release theme park album. no reliable coverage in independent sources"

I think that we could do this more justice ourselves.
 

Top