Loving this site, keeping me sane during lockdown.
How do you tell the release date when there is no indication on the label ?
Secondly what side is the A side ?
Thankyou,
In-house specialist in drive-by moddings. Member since Dec 2012 3715 Points Moderator
There's a useful thread here of a variety of sources regarding 78s (although some of the links may well be dead now), and some members and mods who specialise in that format have access to archive information regarding dates.
As to which side is the A-side, there is no hard-and-fast way to tell. In many cases, the matrix number order will indicate this, but in a lot of other cases it doesn't; each label had its own practices.
If in doubt in either instance, just submit the entry and others will correct it if need be (don't be put off by being wrong; I've learned a hell of lot about a lot of things in the years that I've been here).
For DVDs I get the UPC number from the back and search for it on Amazon as even though Amazon doesn't show UPC values on its site, it allows you to find products in their searches. Amazon usually has the release data for a given title on the page it finds. So this works most of the time and is pretty fast. This also helps get the rating of the DVD's film too if that's not available.
No picture 'cos I'm not into 45rpm :( Member since Jan 2013 3428 Points Moderator
If you are after UK dates, some major labels are available as a software program if you have a Windows PC. See this thread. Mods already have an updated copy with more labels, but I've since found a few errors which have stopped it being made available to members.But sometime soon ..
For the USA/Canada a good general source is the Steven Barr book, 1st entry under the Books & Magazines heading in the link TheJudge gave.
78rpm A/B side designations don't apply to many labels, and then only really in the 1950s, so just add them anyway you want
When no A and B sides are listed, it's a safe practice to list the lowest matrix number first, at least when the matrix numbers are close together. When a much higher (more recent) matrix number is coupled with an older, lower matrix, the newer one often was the featured song (i.e., A side). Another rule of thumb is, that vocals on the A side were often backed by an instrumental on the B side. There are no hard and fast rules, though.
For U.S. releases from ca. 1905 to the late 1920s, you can see which title of a record was listed first in the Record Bulletins of The Talking Machine World (available on archive.org).