Music Scene Groups Classification

[Hunter]

Absolutely pointless topic. There have been thousands of scene music groups throughout its history, starting in the mid-90's. Some, for example, have released a dozen or so rels and have disappeared. Therefore, listing them doesn't make any sense, it's better to create one collective topic with regularly repeating nonscene groups, preferably with examples. And treat it later as a determinant of what should and should not stay on the forum.

But just not to mislead others - from the nonsense that you wrote at the beginning of the topic B2A (and their internal rels) are scene (best proof - see how many nuke they have), DBM/DBM_INT the same situation, and DGN too. EOS/EOSiNT is nonscene, Perplexer was explaining it somewhere on the forum. Also ALPMP3 and MARiBOR are 100% scene, I don't know where the idea that it's otherwise comes from. Also, don't mislead others that HB is Herbie's group, cause it's an old group, distinguished on the scene, and Herby was active in C4A and M4E groups. Someone else had doubts about DJ_Classics and Records_INT, so to be clear - this is also scene. DJ_Classics is a division of DJ and Records_INT also preds their rels normally, although they didn't get much respect on the scene and it's kind of a gray area.

The situation with BWA is similar to Records_INT. The fact that we define a group as "scene", in short, it just means that they, like others, pred their rels on some scene topsites and spread by couriers. The quality of the published material itself is of less importance here. At the beginning of the 21st century, there were quite a lot groups released crap. Various groups have released stolen or reencoded tracks more than once. In this respect, I remembered BWA as one of the worst, but it doesn't change the fact, that they are present on scene, just like other groups. Most often, they protect against nuke their biggest shit under an internal shield. In those days, no one required eg. proofs, so they released whatever they could catch their hands on from various sources, so sometimes you can even find the original source of the tracks in other rels. That's why it looks what it looks like.

It's enough for today. I hope that with this post, at least in part, I explained to the author of this topic, so that he would better not try to do something he has no idea about.

[GabryJ84]

Absolutely pointless topic. There have been thousands of scene music groups throughout its history, starting in the mid-90's. Some, for example, have released a dozen or so rels and have disappeared. Therefore, listing them doesn't make any sense, it's better to create one collective topic with regularly repeating nonscene groups, preferably with examples. And treat it later as a determinant of what should and should not stay on the forum.

Thanks for taking the time to explain things. I see no problems with listing also legitimate scene groups, I know that there have been thousand, but there is no need to list them all. It's just a matter of adding them as members ask weather they are legitimate or not, just as a non-comprenensive guide.
But I agree with you that non-scene should be developed more...this topic is just a stub, because I can't by myself, carry all the work. And that is because I asked for help of other members. To make it better. Together.

But just not to mislead others - from the nonsense that you wrote at the beginning of the topic B2A (and their internal rels) are scene (best proof - see how many nuke they have), DBM/DBM_INT the same situation, and DGN too.

Got it. Will fix immediately.

EOS/EOSiNT is nonscene, Perplexer was explaining it somewhere on the forum.

So the indication of P2P is correct?

Also ALPMP3 and MARiBOR are 100% scene, I don't know where the idea that it's otherwise comes from.

Really? I had some ALPMP3 and they had no ascii art in the NFO. Maybe I got some fake ALPMP3_INT release. Kastelruther_Spatzen-Liebe_Fuer_Die_Ewigkeit-WEB-DE-2020-ALPMP3_INT Taio_Cruz-Hangover_(Remixes)-WEB-2011-ALPMP3 and The_Irish_Rovers-Drunken_Sailor-WEB-2012-ALPMP3

Also, don't mislead others that HB is Herbie's group, cause it's an old group, distinguished on the scene, and Herby was active in C4A and M4E groups.

My Fault. That was HRB, not HB.

Someone else had doubts about DJ_Classics and Records_INT, so to be clear - this is also scene. DJ_Classics is a division of DJ and Records_INT also preds their rels normally, although they didn't get much respect on the scene and it's kind of a gray area.

Got it. Will fix immediately.

The situation with BWA is similar to Records_INT. The fact that we define a group as "scene", in short, it just means that they, like others, pred their rels on some scene topsites and spread by couriers. The quality of the published material itself is of less importance here. At the beginning of the 21st century, there were quite a lot groups released crap. Various groups have released stolen or reencoded tracks more than once. In this respect, I remembered BWA as one of the worst, but it doesn't change the fact, that they are present on scene, just like other groups. Most often, they protect against nuke their biggest shit under an internal shield. In those days, no one required eg. proofs, so they released whatever they could catch their hands on from various sources, so sometimes you can even find the original source of the tracks in other rels. That's why it looks what it looks like.

That is for BWA. As someone else pointed out, lots of BWA_INT releases (the ones without ascii art and the You like this! You buy!) are fake re-encoded, sometimes also 128k releases which of course could never be accepted in scene. Since many of these were distributed by funteek, the association with them was pretty clear, but it also may be that some former BWA guy used BWA_INT to release for funteek.
Maybe you can answer this question.

It's enough for today. I hope that with this post, at least in part, I explained to the author of this topic, so that he would better not try to do something he has no idea about.

I am not going to dig in any further, but I have. I've been briefly in the scene in the 200x so I perfectly know what I am talking about. But it was before many busting occurred and 20 years ago there weren't all the groups that today are.

[Hunter]

Thanks for taking the time to explain things. I see no problems with listing also legitimate scene groups, I know that there have been thousand, but there is no need to list them all. It's just a matter of adding them as members ask weather they are legitimate or not, just as a non-comprenensive guide.
But I agree with you that non-scene should be developed more...this topic is just a stub, because I can't by myself, carry all the work. And that is because I asked for help of other members. To make it better. Together.

That's why it's worth clarifying a few things at the outset and giving direction to this discussion if you want to continue it.

So the indication of P2P is correct?

This is more of an IRC/XDCC group, not a standard p2p/warez like funteek, but nonscene in general.

Really? I had some ALPMP3 and they had no ascii art in the NFO. Maybe I got some fake ALPMP3_INT release. Kastelruther_Spatzen-Liebe_Fuer_Die_Ewigkeit-WEB-DE-2020-ALPMP3_INT Taio_Cruz-Hangover_(Remixes)-WEB-2011-ALPMP3 and The_Irish_Rovers-Drunken_Sailor-WEB-2012-ALPMP3

Really. Whether or not a given nfo template was used or not depended on the ripper and was sometimes not identical to other rels, especially for these types of less respected groups. This is something similar to the Records_INT I described above, but generally a scene group. See for example another German group [External Link Removed for Guests] - what a crap they doing, breaking all the scene rules. And yet they're still a part of scene. Another example is BMI - their oldest releases didn't meet the scene rules even in terms of the name, so most of them aren't in public predb. But you will not say that BMI isn't a well-deserved part of the scene right? That's why it's not always that simple and black and white, especially in the heyday of the mp3 scene. I know of a couple of nonscene groups that stick to the rules more than some of the scenes

That is for BWA. As someone else pointed out, lots of BWA_INT releases (the ones without ascii art and the You like this! You buy!) are fake re-encoded, sometimes also 128k releases which of course could never be accepted in scene. Since many of these were distributed by funteek, the association with them was pretty clear, but it also may be that some former BWA guy used BWA_INT to release for funteek.
Maybe you can answer this question.

BWA and BWA_INT are the same group. The difference is that the releases marked as internal weren't subject to the standard rules - they could repeat previous releases of other groups, they could be incomplete compared to retail (hence, for example, so many custom CDS of various groups with Radio Edit only, often stolen from some previously released compilation, or eg. quite selfmade CDM's), etc., cause then, being behind the _INT shield, usually no one nuked it. That's why I wrote that this was often the biggest shit, but tagged as BWA_INT wasn't nuked. This is actually the specificity of the scene at the beginning of the 21st century, mainly related to the spread of Internet access. With time, the rules started to be more closely watched and such craps was disappeared around 2005-6. Of course, I can't guarantee that there weren't any fakes and they're all 100% legit, cause I won't be surprised how they happened. Anyway, you can write about it for a long time, but in short, this was more or less what it looked like.

I am not going to dig in any further, but I have. I've been briefly in the scene in the 200x so I perfectly know what I am talking about. But it was before many busting occurred and 20 years ago there weren't all the groups that today are.

The mp3 scene has been evolving and changing all the time since 1995

[xNxRxGx]

...Another example is BMI - their oldest releases didn't meet the scene rules even in terms of the name, so most of them aren't in public predb. But you will not say that BMI isn't a well-deserved part of the scene right? That's why it's not always that simple and black and white, especially in the heyday of the mp3 scene. I know of a couple of nonscene groups that stick to the rules more than some of the scenes

you talkin about the annoying "(artist)" thing they did and perhaps "rippers name in release"?
yea i noticed many are missing on predb.ovh for example... never knew the reason tho

[Hunter]

...Another example is BMI - their oldest releases didn't meet the scene rules even in terms of the name, so most of them aren't in public predb. But you will not say that BMI isn't a well-deserved part of the scene right? That's why it's not always that simple and black and white, especially in the heyday of the mp3 scene. I know of a couple of nonscene groups that stick to the rules more than some of the scenes

you talkin about the annoying "(artist)" thing they did and perhaps "rippers name in release"?
yea i noticed many are missing on predb.ovh for example... never knew the reason tho

Yeah, exactly. Also, they sometimes pred rels with single tracks. This is what they wanted to do then and these are the effects. Now you know

[Hunter]

Sorry for the post under the post but I thought about this topic a little more and it's an interesting point in general. I don't remember anywhere, where I was before, such threads that is strictly focused on a specific separation of what is scene and what is nonscene. so this is an interesting issue worth working on. I can start creating such a list if you want, cause I think that I know a little about this and together we can make the first such list on the net

And referring yet to one thing earlier:

Since many of these were distributed by funteek, the association with them was pretty clear, but it also may be that some former BWA guy used BWA_INT to release for funteek.
Maybe you can answer this question.

It's possible. But sorry, I don't know anything for sure about this. I don't know them closer and haven't had any contact with them, so I cannot confirm or deny anything, but it even seems quite likely. But then we have to answer the question whether even if it was so, the whole group should be marked as nonscene, or take a certain average - if the vast majority of a certain group was scene, then I think should belong to the scene and be allowed here. We don't drill down further, cause later we'll get lost. And it must be remembered yet that for some time there was a kind of "gray area", which was not so clear to classify.

[xNxRxGx]

...Another example is BMI - their oldest releases didn't meet the scene rules even in terms of the name, so most of them aren't in public predb. But you will not say that BMI isn't a well-deserved part of the scene right? That's why it's not always that simple and black and white, especially in the heyday of the mp3 scene. I know of a couple of nonscene groups that stick to the rules more than some of the scenes

you talkin about the annoying "(artist)" thing they did and perhaps "rippers name in release"?
yea i noticed many are missing on predb.ovh for example... never knew the reason tho

Yeah, exactly. Also, they sometimes pred rels with single tracks. This is what they wanted to do then and these are the effects. Now you know

right, THAT was even more annoying ...aSide pred separately than bSide, or my most hated "single mp3 radio edit only rls"
but they werent the only ones were they...i def seen quite some BPM (second most probably) or also TCLUB doing that... never knew it was blatantly against the scene rules tho

[GabryJ84]

This is more of an IRC/XDCC group, not a standard p2p/warez like funteek, but nonscene in general.

Ok, so I believe that IRC/XDCC and P2P/WAREZ can go in the same category. Some sort of better thing than personal or fake, but still non scene.

Really. Whether or not a given nfo template was used or not depended on the ripper and was sometimes not identical to other rels, especially for these types of less respected groups. This is something similar to the Records_INT I described above, but generally a scene group. See for example another German group [External Link Removed for Guests] - what a crap they doing, breaking all the scene rules. And yet they're still a part of scene. Another example is BMI - their oldest releases didn't meet the scene rules even in terms of the name, so most of them aren't in public predb. But you will not say that BMI isn't a well-deserved part of the scene right? That's why it's not always that simple and black and white, especially in the heyday of the mp3 scene. I know of a couple of nonscene groups that stick to the rules more than some of the scenes

OK. ALPMP3 moved to scene.

BWA and BWA_INT are the same group. The difference is that the releases marked as internal weren't subject to the standard rules - they could repeat previous releases of other groups, they could be incomplete compared to retail (hence, for example, so many custom CDS of various groups with Radio Edit only, often stolen from some previously released compilation, or eg. quite selfmade CDM's), etc., cause then, being behind the _INT shield, usually no one nuked it. That's why I wrote that this was often the biggest shit, but tagged as BWA_INT wasn't nuked. This is actually the specificity of the scene at the beginning of the 21st century, mainly related to the spread of Internet access. With time, the rules started to be more closely watched and such craps was disappeared around 2005-6. Of course, I can't guarantee that there weren't any fakes and they're all 100% legit, cause I won't be surprised how they happened. Anyway, you can write about it for a long time, but in short, this was more or less what it looked like.

Yes. BMI naming scheme is hideous. Many people renamed folders to classic naming scheme just to have them in alphabetical order so you find in srrdb both incarnations.

I can start creating such a list if you want, cause I think that I know a little about this and together we can make the first such list on the net

Ok...Green light for that.

It's possible. But sorry, I don't know anything for sure about this. I don't know them closer and haven't had any contact with them, so I cannot confirm or deny anything, but it even seems quite likely. But then we have to answer the question whether even if it was so, the whole group should be marked as nonscene, or take a certain average - if the vast majority of a certain group was scene, then I think should belong to the scene and be allowed here. We don't drill down further, cause later we'll get lost. And it must be remembered yet that for some time there was a kind of "gray area", which was not so clear to classify.

It something I was told some time ago. Because aggressive BWA_INT releases come from 2005 and onward. So it could be either that they were kicked off scene and begun releasing shit under INT or they simply quit and someone (perhaps former members) took their name and released shit under their umbrella.
The main problem is that considering these INT releases as scene opens the backdoor to a ginormous pile of rubbish. It is indeed a grey area, maybe just NFO review can help to distinguish shit from chocolate.

[Hunter]

but they werent the only ones were they...i def seen quite some BPM (second most probably) or also TCLUB doing that... never knew it was blatantly against the scene rules tho

Note, that already in the first set of rules for the mp3 scene from [External Link Removed for Guests] there is a concrete rule 8 regarding the naming of the releases. But you're right that the BMI weren't the only ones, I've only given them as the best-known example. When it comes to giving artists in brackets in release names, I once collected such releases on one of my discs. I just checked it out and I have there rels from the following groups:

2DB, BF, BFTOP, BMi, BMiTOP, BMiVID, BPM, CRz, djs4djs, ferz, GoC, HP, HS, iND, iPZVID, KSPRT, LtE, MIL, MILVID, MP99, MS, MTN, MV, NBD, NBDClassic, RdF, RePlay, SE, SMN, T4M, Tal, TCLUB, TCLUB_Classics, WF, XB (not everything is 100% scene)

Ok, so I believe that IRC/XDCC and P2P/WAREZ can go in the same category. Some sort of better thing than personal or fake, but still non scene.

Yeah, by greatly simplifying, we could make the following hierarchy of nonscene: 1. IRC/XDCC, 2. P2P/WAREZ, 3. personal rels, 4. fakes and all the rest of the crap.

Yes. BMI naming scheme is hideous. Many people renamed folders to classic naming scheme just to have them in alphabetical order so you find in srrdb both incarnations.

Don't even annoy me... Thanks to such "smart" people, I still have a folder somewhere on my discs with renamed BMI rels to be corrected...

Ok...Green light for that.

Ok, then I also have a collection of different P2P/IRC releases somewhere, mostly old ones, which maybe not everyone remembers anymore, so I'll make a list of them with examples. I'll also add a few of the most famous nonscene groups and let this be the beginning of a list, to which it would be nice if everyone adds what they remember or have in their collection

It something I was told some time ago. Because aggressive BWA_INT releases come from 2005 and onward. So it could be either that they were kicked off scene and begun releasing shit under INT or they simply quit and someone (perhaps former members) took their name and released shit under their umbrella.

As I wrote before, of course it could be as you write, but there was also a lot of 100% legit scene rels marked as BWA_INT. Therefore, they cannot be unequivocally classified as nonscene. In my opinion, we should generally treat the entire BWA group here on the forum as a scene, but remembering that there may be various fakes or other craps. And try to catch them if they appear somewhere.

The main problem is that considering these INT releases as scene opens the backdoor to a ginormous pile of rubbish. It is indeed a grey area, maybe just NFO review can help to distinguish shit from chocolate.

Unfortunately, this can never be 100% avoided. You have to accept it, cause we all learn all the time. Therefore I think that such nonscene groups list, which we are sure, will be the most transparent and easy to use for all users

[DaScientific]

...

Ok, so I believe that IRC/XDCC and P2P/WAREZ can go in the same category. Some sort of better thing than personal or fake, but still non scene.

Yeah, by greatly simplifying, we could make the following hierarchy of nonscene: 1. IRC/XDCC, 2. P2P/WAREZ, 3. personal rels, 4. fakes and all the rest of the crap.
...

Do you consider NUKED releases still as scene release? Just to double-check what you wrote about MCG. On my pre sources, more than 95% of the MCG releases have been nuked. With a certain point of view, you definately could say that this is not a scene group, because most times they dont play by the rules - or the other way around: there are P2P groups that are able to follow the scene rules better than this group is (as you also stated in your post).

...

Really? I had some ALPMP3 and they had no ascii art in the NFO. Maybe I got some fake ALPMP3_INT release. Kastelruther_Spatzen-Liebe_Fuer_Die_Ewigkeit-WEB-DE-2020-ALPMP3_INT Taio_Cruz-Hangover_(Remixes)-WEB-2011-ALPMP3 and The_Irish_Rovers-Drunken_Sailor-WEB-2012-ALPMP3

Really. Whether or not a given nfo template was used or not depended on the ripper and was sometimes not identical to other rels, especially for these types of less respected groups. This is something similar to the Records_INT I described above, but generally a scene group. See for example another German group [External Link Removed for Guests] - what a crap they doing, breaking all the scene rules. And yet they're still a part of scene. Another example is BMI - their oldest releases didn't meet the scene rules even in terms of the name, so most of them aren't in public predb. But you will not say that BMI isn't a well-deserved part of the scene right? That's why it's not always that simple and black and white, especially in the heyday of the mp3 scene. I know of a couple of nonscene groups that stick to the rules more than some of the scenes
...

So if i get you right on that:

1. (Not Nuked/Nuked/Unnuked/Proper/IND/INT) Scene Releases
_________________________________ Red Line for this Forum - everything below this line is not allowed (for now)?
3. IRC/XDCC
4. P2P
5. Personal
6. fake/crap

I personally dont prefer to know more detail about the release group (for both, P2P and scene groups). So I would not seperate between a "one man show" and a 2+ person group. I also would not seperate between the different P2P network (this would also mean, that you need know the background of a certain release group). I'm personally not able to know what is happening in the torrent/webwarez area - but im pretty sure that there is a lot going on - not only on IRC/NNTP, but also on the WEB.

I would prefer to seperate between Scene/Scene-a-like/non-Scene-a-like/crap+fake and maybe move the red line to not only inlcude "real scene releases", but also to somewhat "acceptable" Scene-a-like releases (rules may be: somewhat acceptable naming of the release, having a nfo and sfv - just as an example).

1. (Not Nuked/Nuked/Unnuked/Proper/IND/INT) Scene Releases
2. Scene-A-Like Releases
_________________________________ Red Line
3. Non Scene-A-Like Releases
4. Fake/Crap

What do you think about that?