What Does Credited Mean on an Album? Four Maps, 83 Records, 1967 to 2017
What credited means on an album is this: the sleeve names you as having contributed, and on my maps that name earns a line. I tested the rule against four sheets covering 83 releases, 1967 to 2017, for the discography music maps of David Bowie, Blondie, The Fall and Kate Bush. The awkward cases are the interesting ones.
A credit is not the same as being in the band, and it is not the same as playing an instrument. It is whatever the record company printed, and printed credits are inconsistent, inconsistently spelled, and occasionally not about music at all.
The Four Sheets Behind This Piece
- David Bowie: 26 studio albums, 1967 to 2016, 166 credited names
- Blondie and Debbie Harry: 16 studio albums, 1976 to 2017
- The Fall: 31 studio albums, 1979 to 2017, 56 credited names
- Kate Bush: 10 releases, 1978 to 2011
Studio records only on all four, which is the editorial rule I hold to across the range.
A Radio DJ and a Band Manager Both Have Lines
The Fall sheet contains the two credits that test the rule hardest. John Peel, the broadcaster who did more than anyone to keep that band on the radio, is credited on Middle Class Revolt in 1994. One album, one station, one short line.
Kay Carroll, who managed the band, is credited on three: Dragnet and Grotesque in 1979 and 1980, and Hex Enduction Hour in 1982. Three consecutive stations for the manager, which is longer than plenty of the guitarists on that print.
Neither of them is a session musician in any ordinary sense. Both are on the map, because the sleeve credits them and my rule follows the sleeve rather than my own sense of who ought to count.
Where My Own Rule Does Not Hold
I would rather write this down than quietly leave it out. The Kate Bush sheet credits David Katz as an orchestral contractor on two albums, and he has a line on the artwork.
A contractor books the players. He has not performed anything. On a strict reading of my own rule he should not be on that map, and he is. It is a real inconsistency in the artwork rather than a wrinkle in the paperwork, and it is on my list to resolve.
| Name | What the credit is for | Map and stations | Line? |
|---|---|---|---|
| John Peel | Credited contribution, not an instrument | The Fall, 1 of 31 | Yes |
| Kay Carroll | Band manager, credited on the sleeves | The Fall, 3 of 31 | Yes |
| Simon Rogers | Player on three albums, production only on a fourth | The Fall, 3 of 31 | Yes, for three |
| Tony Visconti | Bass and arrangement alongside producing | David Bowie, 9 of 26 | Yes |
| Gus Dudgeon | Production only, no playing credit | David Bowie, none | No |
| David Katz | Orchestral contractor, booked players rather than playing | Kate Bush, 2 of 10 | Yes, and it should not be |
One Person, Two Spellings, and Nearly Two Lines
This is the error that does the most damage, because it is invisible unless you go looking. A sleeve spells a name one way on one record and another way on the next, and a careless transcription turns one musician into two separate lines that each look like a short cameo.
Stan Harrison plays saxophone on five Bowie albums. On Tonight in 1984 the credit reads Stanley Harrison. On Blondie, Debbie Harry is Deborah Harry across most of the middle of the run, and Jimmy Destri is James Destri on Plastic Letters in 1977. Gary Valentine appears in that sheet's roster as Gary Valentine with Lachman alongside it, because the credits use both.
Four variants in two catalogues, and each one was a line that could have been drawn twice. I record credits exactly as printed and then check for this deliberately, which is slower than tidying as I go and the only way to get it right.
The Same Line Can Change Job Description Completely
Chris Stein is on all 16 stations of the Blondie map, and the credit wording moves a long way across them. On the 1976 debut it reads guitar, with bass on "X Offender". By Rockbird in 1986 it is additional guitar on three named tracks plus bass and drum programming. On Necessary Evil in 2007 it reads, simply, all instruments.
That is one unbroken line on the print and five different jobs underneath it. Robert Fripp is the compact version of the same thing on the same map: guitar on track four of Parallel Lines, then guitar on a bonus live track on Eat to the Beat. Two stations, two quite different kinds of credit.
What the Sheets Get Wrong, and How I Catch It
My own research sheets are not clean either, and pretending otherwise would be no use to anyone reading this. The Fall sheet spells the 1983 album as Peverted by Language. The release is Perverted by Language, and that typo has sat in my working file for years without reaching a print.
More awkward are the debris cells: single characters and stray spaces left in a grid of several thousand cells. The Blondie sheet has one on Eat to the Beat, The Fall sheet has them on Cerebral Caustic and Sub-Lingual Tablet, and the Bowie sheet has one on Earthling. Each of those inflates that album's musician count by one if you trust the count row instead of counting the grid.
So I count the grid. It is the reason a figure on one of these pages sometimes disagrees with a figure I published a year ago, and when it does, the newer count is the one I stand behind.
What Does Credited Mean on an Album: The Questions I Get
Does a producer count as a credited musician?
Only when they are also credited playing or singing on the record. Visconti qualifies on nine Bowie albums; Gus Dudgeon qualifies on none. I have set that rule out at length in do producers play on the albums they produce.
Do people who are not musicians get a line?
Yes, if the sleeve credits them. John Peel and Kay Carroll are both on The Fall map for that reason. The credit is the qualification, not the instrument.
Why does the same musician sometimes appear twice?
They should not, and the usual cause is a spelling change between sleeves. Stan and Stanley Harrison is one person on five Bowie albums, and that is exactly the trap I check for before drawing anything.
What is not on these maps?
Live albums, compilations and soundtracks, left off by editorial rule rather than oversight, along with anyone who only ever played live, because there is no printed credit to work from. There is more on what gets left off a discography map.
Related Music Maps
The two catalogues that supplied most of the awkward cases here are worth reading in their own right: Blondie albums in order for the credit wording, and Kate Bush albums in order for the orchestral credits.
Sizes and Print Detail
| Size | Dimensions | Unframed | Black wood frame |
|---|---|---|---|
| A3 | 420 x 297 mm | £35 | not offered |
| A2 | 594 x 420 mm | £45 | £125 |
| A1 | 841 x 594 mm | £65 | £175 |
Three inch formats sit alongside those as separate sizes rather than conversions: 16 x 12 in, 24 x 18 in and 36 x 24 in. Every print is a Giclée on 230gsm premium fine art paper, textured matte, archival and acid-free, unframed or in a black wood frame ready to hang. A3 is unframed only.
Seventy discography maps, drawn from the credits
Every line on every map is a name somebody printed on a sleeve. Deeply researched from liner notes and session archives, drawn in CAD by me in East Sussex. No AI at any stage.
See the discography music maps, or if you are buying for someone and are not sure which catalogue they would want, a gift card for music fans lets them choose.
