Jon Anderson

Why is "Anderson/Ponty" separated from Jon Anderson while "Anderson/Wakeman" is under Jon Anderson?

Does it matter?

I think that consistency in organization does matter when it comes to an archive, but it's not that easy to achieve and not even always preferable. It can facilitate people's ease of findings things, for one. I didn't know about the "Jon Anderson & Rick Wakeman" and the "Jon Anderson & Rick Wakeman Band" cases until now, but I do know of others. I have added album collaborations myself under a single artist in the past, instead of suggesting the collabortive project to a team, which then has to evaluate and approve that project, then a new bio has to be written, and only then can one add the album. It is a lot of work, and it hasn't always seemed necessary to me to go through all of that.

By the way, we also have "Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe" as a separate project, rather than under any solo outing-- that has not just one studio album but also live albums.

Any member can add albums, but only teams can approve individual entries (new band/ artist listings), only special collabs can add bands, and as said, that can be a lot of work, and some people will just add albums instead of proposing the new band entry. In some cases people who add albums probably don't know about the other choices.

In the case of the Anderson Ponty Band, I guess it was considered a significant enough Prog project in its own right that, despite all the effort a new entry requires, a separate listing was considered necessary. Add Band to a collaborative name, and it gives it an air of being a significant project in its own right too. Personally, I think if it's expected to be just say a one off album rather than a continuing project (Anderson/Wakeman has one studio and one live of the studio album), then generally-speaking a separate listing is probably not necessary. It can add clutter. Sometimes separate entries are made later for organisational purposes (collboarations might have been listed under an act at first, but then it was decided by a team that they should be split up by adding it as new band/artist entry-- that is not so true of prog related).

I have not heard "The Living Tree", but I suspect that another reason that it wasn't given its own listing, could be the main reason, sis that it may not be considered that suitable to any of the Prog categories. Anderson is in Prog Related, Wakeman is in symph. Adding acts to Prog Related is exceptional and arduous, so I don't think it would get a separate Prog related listing. The album got in anyway. Looking at the track listings, which are short, lends me to believe that it is not much of a Prog album, and if it isn't deemed a Prog album, then the collboaration would not pass muster for a Prog category with its own entry at this site. The Ponty Anderson Band Project, though, must have passed Prog muster to be considered Crossover Prog.

What I do wish was that the albums could be listed under Wakeman's listing too, but such duplication across entries cause problems since ratings and reviews of the same album will be found under multiple listings (think that could be rectified with the entries linking to the same reviews/ ratings url, but that's another matter). Mentioning side projects in the bio helps, but often that means revising them as new projects come along or are unearthed.

To answer in a more simple fashion, while several factors could come into play, if the Ponty/Anderson effort is deemed Prog, whereas the Anderson/Wakeman project is not considered to be as Prog category worthy, then it is to be expected that the important from a Prog perspective one wuld be more likely to get its own separate listing.