# Tagging song titles - Musicbrainz's style
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tagging-song-titles-musicbrainzs-style/19226
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [August 13, 2017, 2:23pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tagging-song-titles-musicbrainzs-style/19226 "2017-08-13T14:23:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Zapgok](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Zapgok)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2017, 2:23pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tagging-song-titles-musicbrainzs-style/19226/1 "2017-08-13T14:23:01Z")
Once in a while I need to tag an album that's not in the Musicbrainz database. The most tedious part of that is changing all the song titles so that the capitalization matches the one used by Musicbrainz and by extension all the other music in my library.
Their style rules are outlined here:
[https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Style/Language/English](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Style/Language/English)
> [@](#):
>
> All words in a title should have their first letter capitalized and following letters lower case except as noted below:
>
> ```
> (1) Always capitalize the first and last word of a title. This rule should be followed even if the words would normally be lowercase according to the other rules. If a title is broken up by major punctuation (colon according to subtitle style, question mark, exclamation mark, em-dash, parentheses, or quotes), capitalize each distinct piece of the title as if it were a distinct title. Therefore, for example, always capitalize the first and last words of each section.
> (2) Between the first and last word of a title Capitalize all words except:
> (a) Articles: a, an, the
> (:sunglasses: Coordinate conjunctions: and, but, or, nor
> © Short prepositions (three letters or less): as, at, by, for, in, of, on, to, but, cum, mid, off, per, qua, re, up, via -- except when used as adverbs or as an inseparable part of a verb (as in "Plug In Baby" or "Shine On You Crazy Diamond").
> (d) When used to form an infinitive: to
> (3) In compounds formed by hyphens, capitalize each part exactly as if they were a separate word.
> (4) Capitalize contractions and slang consistent with the rules above to the extent that such clearly apply. For example, do not capitalize o' for "of", 'n' or n' for "and".
>
> ```
Is there a plugin available that already does this or would it be possible to write a regex syntax based on these rules? Thanks in advance!
---
### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2017, 4:19pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tagging-song-titles-musicbrainzs-style/19226/2 "2017-08-13T16:19:44Z")
See if the Grammartron set of actions helps you:
[/t/11684/1](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/11684/1)
---
### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [August 14, 2017, 8:12am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tagging-song-titles-musicbrainzs-style/19226/3 "2017-08-14T08:12:05Z")
> [@Zapgok](#):
>
> Once in a while I need to tag an album that's not in the Musicbrainz database. The most tedious part of that is changing all the song titles so that the capitalization matches the one used by Musicbrainz and by extension all the other music in my library.
May I ask, why you don't add such missing albums to the (open source) MusicBrainz database?
You would do a big favour for all other users searching for exactly this album. 😉
I assume, you have already saved a huge amount of time using the existing data from MB? Contributing to this database helps every user.
---
### Author:  [@Zapgok](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Zapgok)
#### Post date: [August 14, 2017, 12:46pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tagging-song-titles-musicbrainzs-style/19226/4 "2017-08-14T12:46:35Z")
> [@ohrenkino](#):
>
> See if the Grammartron set of actions helps you:
> [/t/11684/1](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/11684/1)
Excellent! I was able to modify it by removing all prepositions with more than 3 letters, now it fits the style used by MB exactly.
Huge thanks for pointing me in the right direction! Saved me a lot of time and effort.
> [@LyricsLover](#):
>
> May I ask, why you don't add such missing albums to the (open source) MusicBrainz database?
> You would do a big favour for all other users searching for exactly this album. 😉
>
> I assume, you have already saved a huge amount of time using the existing data from MB? Contributing to this database helps every user.
I, of course, do that from time to time but it's not always that easy. A lot of times I'm not a 100% sure that the information I have access to is correct. When working with my own local files, I'll just leave those parts out - but that's not really an option when adding them to a database other people depend on for the correct information.
---
### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [August 14, 2017, 2:49pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tagging-song-titles-musicbrainzs-style/19226/5 "2017-08-14T14:49:35Z")
> [@Zapgok](#):
>
> I, of course, do that from time to time but it's not always that easy. A lot of times I'm not a 100% sure that the information I have access to is correct. When working with my own local files, I'll just leave those parts out - but that's not really an option when adding them to a database other people depend on for the correct information.
Great. Thanks for your support!
There are a lot of people at MB who can correct wrong or add missing data.
IMHO it's much better to have some basic data then no data at all. Additions can always be made. And during the 7 days voting periode you can be (almost) sure that someone will check your modifications. 😉
---
### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [February 9, 2026, 12:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/tagging-song-titles-musicbrainzs-style/19226/6 "2026-02-09T12:26:56Z")