Fake Alien Album

June 23, 2010 4:06 PM

Portishead's album Alien isn't Portishead; it's Mandalay's Empathy, yes? How did this happen and what could/should I do about it's place in my music library?

I know I'm several years late with this. There's a LOT of information online concerning this album and what it's not. As was suggested in that thread, I've looked up the lyrics for the Mandalay album.

While what I've seen matches, I'm not 100% certain what to do with the "fake" in my library. Do I change the ID3 tags to match the Mandalay album? Does it match completely? (I haven't had time to match all the tracks.) Do I leave it as is for some sort of "novelty" value?

Also, how does a release like this happen?

posted by MuChao to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

Fake Portishead albums (usually other trip-hop albums rebranded, or series of mixes) have been floating around on the internet for years. I remember scoring all sorts of random crap under Portishead's name back in college in 2002. It's a prank, pretty much, the mentality behind which I totally do not.

I was fond of Mandalay back in my trip-hop phase, so I'd keep it. You're downloading this stuff, so I'd just download Empathy, see if it matches up completely and keep it. Otherwise, it's a pretty ancient fake, so if you like the sound, keep it as a fake.
posted by griphus at 4:16 PM on June 23, 2010

Yes, complete fake. Just delete it. Trolls put up fake stuff like this to feed their egos off the chaos. Don't feed them thinking there's some sort of strange kitsch value to it; it's not like a fake Picasso or something that took effort or skill.
posted by cowbellemoo at 7:11 PM on June 23, 2010

Response by poster: Actually, *I* didn't download it. I burned it off an ex roommate's computer. I guess he downloaded it. It's not bad, really. Just, not Portishead. It won't be deleted, but may get renamed/reordered/corrected.

There were more of these fakes? Have any examples? Any as good as Alien/Empathy?

How does this sort of stuff happen anyway?
posted by MuChao at 10:16 PM on June 23, 2010

how does it happen? easy. someone just got the mandalay album and changed the tags to portishead and then uploaded it somewhere posted links in a few of the right placs. bam it spreads like wildfire.

Its not particularly unique or special - just an annoying prank. i'd re-tag it or delete it.
posted by mary8nne at 3:51 AM on June 24, 2010

There were more of these fakes? Have any examples?

The classic example is downloading a feature film to find that it's two hours of german hardcore pornography. Or codec-needed malware traps. Now that torrent sites have comments and flagging systems, fakes are harder to spread.
posted by cowbellemoo at 7:02 AM on June 24, 2010

Another classic example: a song like, e.g., 'Stuck in the Middle With You,' by Stealers' Wheel, is misidentified as e.g. a Bob Dylan song (I hear this happens a lot to 'Weird' Al Yankovic). Understandable mistake, but wrongo.
posted by box at 12:50 PM on June 24, 2010