When you get a new album (either via download or in physical CD), if the track titles on the cover are listed in all caps, do you:

Write Track Titles This Way, With All Of The Words Capitalized

or do you...

Write Track Titles This Way, With Some of the Words Capitalized

?

Lately I've been totally revamping how I organize my music: I used to just buy everything from iTunes, and even anything not bought from there, I would alter the artist/album/track info to virtually match the iTunes Store entry for that album, 100%.

Now, though, I get my albums in FLAC wherever possible online, and either convert them/import CDs as ALAC. I no longer do my album titles as "Movie Title (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)"; I merely write the title of the movie, and only employ parentheses when it is a special edition/to differentiate between versions. I now also strive to label my tracks as accurately to the album cover as possible. Just trying to simplify things a bit and make my library more coherent.

Some albums have their track titles on the back written using both upper and lowercased words, so you can accurately enter them into iTunes or your media player of choice. These albums either list every word capitalized at the start, or have only some words capitalized at the start. However, far too many albums employ TRACK TITLES THAT HAVE ALL CAPS, in which case it is impossible to figure out which words actually should/shouldn't be capitalized at the start. Assuming maybe there's at least someone out there as OCD as myself on this, what do you do? Do you just capitalize the start of each word, for albums that do that? Or do you adopt a "common sense" capitalization method, in which words like "of", "and", "for", "from", "the" etc. are left lowercased? Either option is technically viable I suppose, as either is used by album covers.

I realize this is kind of a dumb, picky question, but I am just wondering if anyone else strives to have any sort of consistency in how they write out track titles, or if anyone has any suggestions for more effectively streamlining the process. At first, upon finding an album cover that had titles in all-caps, I would search and compare track listings between iTunes, Amazon, Filmtracks, Movie Music UK, AllMusic, etc., in the hopes of finding some commonality between them. But that's often not the case.

Sooo. Any thoughts?

I standardize all my formatting, including track names.
I use to capitalize every word, simply to avoid trying to remember how the rules work.
I've recently been re-examining 40,000 plus tracks, and I adjusted the standards to that used for headlines and titles.
I use the standards currently used by wikipedia, because I can easily compare their word usage to mine in formal titles.

Basically, everything gets capitalized except the following words:
a, an, the, and, but, or, for, to, from, thru, up, down, in, out, on, off, by, over
There may be others, but they slip my mind.
Exceptions to these include the first word in titles, and the first word after colons or semi-colons.
Also phrases that include such a word, such as Blast Off, or formal names such as Billy and The Beaters.
Never words five letters or longer, such as Under.
Also, no verbs, passive or otherwise, including Is, Was, As, Be, Has, Had and so forth.

There are more, but you can check here for various theories.
http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/capitalization/rules-for-capitalization-in-titles.html

The most important rule, is that whatever method you choose, (and there are more than one,) you use it consistently.

Thanks for the response. Just to clarify, if an album cover uses a different capitalization method, do you still alter the tracks to fit your method? Or if it's very obvious what they mean it to be (i.e. they differentiate uppercase from lowercase), do you go with what the back cover says?

Usually the all caps issue always arise for me on Japanese VGM or Anime soundtracks. For which I leave it as it is. Now, for any other music I just go with my gut. I capitalize words as I see fit, except "and", "for", "a", "an", etc. Personal pronouns in caps, possesive in lower case and such. In spanish it is a little more tricky for me.

I don't generally retain all cap titles. There's a reason that is not common practice in English.
In fact, I go further. Several Japanese bands use lowercase letters to start their names. I don't. My music archive, my rules.

Your music archive, your rules.

Why did you post this thread both here and on JWFan? Is the knowledge of one forum not enough? :noonecares:

Why did you post this thread both here and on JWFan? Is the knowledge of one forum not enough? :noonecares:

Please note that this type of thread is ILLEGAL on JWFan and should be deleted from there ASAP.

Sincerely, Your friendly moderator of the entire internet

I am a writer, so improper capitalization bothers me. For example, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. "and the" and "of the" aren't capitalized. The word "of" should never be capitalized unless it is the first word in the title, either album title or song title. Words "from" and "for" I usually capitalize, it doesn't matter very much (i.e. Music From The MP). But "the" isn't always capitalized. If it says "and the" then make it lowercase. I make it uppercase if it is referring to something or starting something (i.e. The Hobbit, The Feast of Starlight, We Are Not The Same). This applies to "in, a, as" too. It isn't very complicated.

To summarize, articles are lowercase unless they begin the title. If they are alone (only 1 article in the whole title), it is fine to capitalize them, but I think "of" looks dumb when capitalized.

I am not completely OCD about my collection. Album titles don't always include "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" unless it is on the album artwork. If there is something like "Intrada Special Collection" or "The Deluxe Edition" then I have that in parentheses instead of OMPS. I also make sure that all my genres are simplified. I use iTunes because I have an iPod, and I hate how there are endless different genres for film scores. I just write them all as "Film Score, Game Score" and dump the whole "soundtrack, film soundtracks, soundtrack/score, movie soundtracks, instrumental, etc." crap.

In the end, it doesn't really matter. It is up to you.

i do nothing.
i got it for the music.
hell, half the osts i have have jap or some other language.

Thanks for everyone's responses! Another question:

How do you categorize soundtrack albums for seasons of a TV show? For instance, "Game of Thrones: Season 1", or "Game of Thrones (season 1)"?

To summarize, articles are lowercase unless they begin the title. If they are alone (only 1 article in the whole title), it is fine to capitalize them, but I think "of" looks dumb when capitalized.

:this:

Retag that shit to proper case even when a pirate uploads their album.

It's also just as horrible to capitalize all letters for TV shows that put things in all caps.

I don't know who they think is their intended audience; but, it's not old people needing larger print and it's not kids getting excited over giant letters.
They're very condenscending that way.
...I mean, I still enjoy watching a cartoon now and then but don't shame me for it. >_>

Intrada/LaLaLand: "DON'T FORGET, YOU'RE BUYING SOMETHING MADE FOR KIDS! FREE COLORING BOOK INSIDE! ASK YOUR PARENTS FOR NON-SHARPENED CRAYONS."

"of the", "and", etc etc, I never capitalise. I tend to change it when I spot it. Everything else is capitalised.
Like you, I simply name the album by the movie or game title and only add (recording sessions), (expanded score), etc when I have several editions of a score.
What I do always do in the case of LLL, Varese or Intrada is add the label and record issue number designation in parentheses). I only picked up on that recently because I had two separate Cliffhanger releases. So I continued that trend for tall the other releases I have. I also generalise my genres to the best of my abilities. Motion Picture Score, Motion Picture Soundtrack, Recording Sessions, Expanded Score, Video Game Score, and that's about where it ends (regarding scores at least).