How do you capitalize your song titles?

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Absolutextasi
Posts: 29
Joined: Fri Mar 12, 2010 4:08 am

Re: How do you capitalize your song titles?

Post by Absolutextasi »

I'm interested to know why someone one would capitalize their songs titles "On and On" as opposed to "On And On". There was this long period in my life where I started to research what words should and shouldn't be capitalized in a title. I had a long list of prepositions and started to convert my music. BIG MISTAKE. There would always be multiple songs where the song title would look awkward, or the artist would purposely not capitalize a word etc. I then said F*ck it! Every word regardless will be capitalized to show consistency. My library is almost perfect and there have been absolutely no qualms about this subject ever since (for myself). I'm just now interested in what you guys think
nohitter151
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Re: How do you capitalize your song titles?

Post by nohitter151 »

Absolutextasi wrote:I'm interested to know why someone one would capitalize their songs titles "On and On" as opposed to "On And On".
It just doesn't look right.
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Lowlander
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Re: How do you capitalize your song titles?

Post by Lowlander »

I prefer to capitalize each word too as it looks better.
Absolutextasi
Posts: 29
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Re: How do you capitalize your song titles?

Post by Absolutextasi »

nohitter151 wrote:
Absolutextasi wrote:I'm interested to know why someone one would capitalize their songs titles "On and On" as opposed to "On And On".
It just doesn't look right.
I understand, but it's almost impossible to know all of the words that are suppose to be capitalized or not. Or do you just organize it based on good it looks?
nohitter151
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Re: How do you capitalize your song titles?

Post by nohitter151 »

Absolutextasi wrote: I understand, but it's almost impossible to know all of the words that are suppose to be capitalized or not. Or do you just organize it based on good it looks?
No, not impossible. There are plenty of guidelines about it. I like the Musicbrainz way of capitalization:
http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Capitalizat ... rd_English
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hostonmark
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Re: How do you capitalize your song titles?

Post by hostonmark »

In order to capatalize the song titles you need to go through following steps

1-Capitalize the First and Last Words : The first and last words of the title should always be capitalized,including articles (a, an, the) and words of more than 4 letters.

2-Use Quotes Around Title Names : The use of quotation marks over italics is primarily because of the inability of traditional print presses to create italicized text.

3-Translate Foreign Works and Titles Into English : If the title of a work is unknown in its foreign language, always translate the title or work into English.
Lowlander
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Re: How do you capitalize your song titles?

Post by Lowlander »

Why do you need to translate?
gpzbc
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Re: How do you capitalize your song titles?

Post by gpzbc »

I capitalize song titles according to the same rules for capitalizing book titles.
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Solitaire001
Posts: 77
Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 7:33 pm

Re: How do you capitalize your song titles?

Post by Solitaire001 »

I prefer to capitalize the first letter of each word, regardless of the type of word. This way, I have far few exceptions to deal with (such as groups with an all-caps name like ABBA). Plus, for me it just consistent than having to deal with the many exceptions.
Dreadlau
Posts: 1967
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2007 6:49 am

Re: How do you capitalize your song titles?

Post by Dreadlau »

nohitter151 wrote:
Absolutextasi wrote: I understand, but it's almost impossible to know all of the words that are suppose to be capitalized or not. Or do you just organize it based on good it looks?
No, not impossible. There are plenty of guidelines about it. I like the Musicbrainz way of capitalization:
http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Capitalizat ... rd_English
Thank you for this interesting link Nohitter.
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Anonymous Unicorn

Re: How do you capitalize your song titles?

Post by Anonymous Unicorn »

What about special song names where the case is actually part of it, for example "obZen" by Meshuggah?
MMuser2011
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Re: How do you capitalize your song titles?

Post by MMuser2011 »

Anonymous Unicorn wrote:What about special song names where the case is actually part of it, for example "obZen" by Meshuggah?
MusicBrainz (also my preferred source) says:
Artist Intent

Artists sometimes choose to present names and titles in ways that deliberately contradict the rules of the language they're in (e.g. unorthodox spellings) and/or the MusicBrainz Style Guidelines. To describe the way we handle such choices, we use the term "artist intent." The general idea is that if an artist intended something to be written in a special way, then MusicBrainz should follow that intent.

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find out what an artist intended. If you want to claim that some deviation from the Style Guidelines should be considered artist intent, the burden of proof lies on you. A seeming error may be considered evidence of artist intent if it is consistently found on all of an artist's official releases. The best evidence would be a statement of intent by the artist
Source: http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Style/Princ ... ist_intent

Examples:
- 2raumwohnung, a‐ha and k.d. lang (artist names in all lowercase)
- Guns N' Roses (artist name spelled with N' instead of 'n')
- locomotor ataxia (all lowercase for artist name, release titles and track titles)
- eMOTIVe (unusual capitalization of release title)
- "Use ta Be My Girl" and "Yer Blues" (unorthodox spellings in work titles)



-> My vote for the poll was "something else". Because it depends from the artists intent.
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