Liner notes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Liner notes are the writings found in booklets which come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for vinyl records and cassettes. They are descended from the notes of text that were printed on the rear side of the cardboard record jacket used to protect a traditional 12-inch vinyl record, i.e., long playing or gramophone record album. The term descends from the name "record liner" or "album liner". On vinyl recordings, the most common placement of these notes would be the paper sleeve inside of an album jacket that served to protect the record from dust (dust sleeve or dust liner, etc.). Liner notes often contained a mix of factual and anecdotal material, and occasionally a discography for the artist or the issuing record label. They were also an occasion for thoughtful signed essays on the artist by another party, often a sympathetic music journalist, a custom that has largely died out. However, the liner note essay has survived in retrospective compilations, particularly in box sets.
Liner notes now usually include information about the musician, lyrics, a personnel list, and other credits to people or companies involved in the production of the music. They also can give details on the extent of each musical piece, and sometimes place them in historical or social context. Liner notes for classical music recordings often provide information in several languages; if the piece includes vocal parts, they will often include a libretto, possibly also translated into several languages.
Liner notes give a form of primitive and incoherently structured (from one studio or label to another) metadata set, which can sometimes help establish some form of order in a private or public collection of sound recordings. There is a special version of the ISBD which addresses the issues involved in trusting the information placed in the liner notes, when the time comes to describe a sound recording in the catalogue of a library. It is important to note the information found on these recordings approved by the artist and/or the label issuing the recording, introducing a biased point of view. As such, these notes are far less historically accurate than the records kept by recording studios and the freely expressed criticism of the recordings from the press at large (assuming such crticism is reviewed en masse).de:Liner Notes ja:ライナーノーツ
