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This template is used on approximately 164,000 pages.
To avoid major disruption and server load, any changes should be tested in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. The tested changes can be added to this page in a single edit. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

The design and content of all music-related infoboxes should follow Wikipedia's verifiability policy, infobox style guideline and music style guideline. While this document may clarify details of their specific application to the infobox, it is primarily concerned with explaining usage and not with matters of Wikipedia policy and style.

This infobox should italicize the article title automatically. If this is not required, add |italic_title=no to the list of parameters. If this is required but the title is not being italicized, try |italic_title=force.

This template adds an automatically generated short description. If the automatic short description is not optimal, replace it by adding {{Short description}} at the top of the article.

This template uses Lua:

The standard infobox for album articles is the {{Infobox album}} template. The box to the right is an example. You can look at the wikitext of this documentation page and copy-and-paste the markup to an article, replacing the information within the copy with info on the album you choose to write about.

The infobox code should be placed at the top of the article.

Code

Most articles should only need the following fields (for the full list of fields see § Advanced usage). Do not remove fields from this list when the value is unknown; in that case the values should be left blank. Please note that the field names are case-sensitive.

If this template is substituted, it will return a cleaned-up copy of itself (see Wikipedia:Substitution trick) with unnecessary parameters removed and deprecated parameters replaced. Parameter indentation will also automatically be fixed.

{{subst:Infobox album
| name       = 
| type       = 
| artist     = 
| cover      = 
| alt        = 
| released   = <!-- {{start date|||}} -->
| recorded   = <!-- Do not add unsourced recording dates/years -->
| venue      = 
| studio     = 
| genre      = <!-- Do not add unsourced genres -->
| length     = 
| label      = 
| producer   = 
| prev_title = 
| prev_year  = 
| next_title = 
| next_year  = 
}}

Details

Try to fill in as many of the details as you can. If some details are unknown, leave the section blank. Wikilink wherever appropriate, but make sure you check your links and disambiguate accordingly.

name

The album's title should be specified using text (not a logo), which will be automatically italicized.

type

The |type= field refers to the general type of album. Enter a code from the following chart. The type will appear with the appropriate color.

Code	Display
studio	Studio album by artist
demo	Demo album by artist
EP	EP by artist
single album	Single album by artist
live	Live album by artist
greatest	Greatest hits album by artist
remix	Remix album by artist
box	Box set by artist
compilation	Compilation album by artist
mixtape	Mixtape by artist
soundtrack	Soundtrack album by artist
film	Film score by artist
cast	Cast recording by artist
video	Video by artist
other	other by artist

cover

An image of the official front cover of the original version of the album (or a reissue, if no original cover can be found) should be included at cover. However, unless the album cover is represented by a free image, the cover art should not be included when the infobox is used in an article whose primary topic is not the album itself, such as a musician's biography of discography. Album cover artwork may be scanned, or downloaded from another site such as AllMusic or Amazon.com. Note that whether you scan one yourself or copy it from another site, when uploading an image, you must tag it properly and follow non-free content usage guidelines where they apply. Whenever possible, prefer a version without stickers (like Parental Advisory, "As seen on TV", etc.) to display the artwork as intended by the artist. If you cannot find a cover image, just leave this field blank.

Upload a copy of the album cover (as a non-free image under fair use if necessary). The image will display in the infobox in its real size, capped by the value of the user's "Thumbnail size" parameter in their appearance preferences, or the default (currently 220px) for non logged-in readers or users who have not set a different preference. To satisfy non-free use criteria, the total number of pixels in the uploaded image for any non-free image (i.e. the width in px × the height in px) should not exceed 100,000 – square images should therefore not exceed 316px (300px is a common choice for square album covers).
On the image description page, use the {{Non-free album cover}} image copyright tag if it is non-free. Selecting "Album or single cover" from the pulldown list on the image upload page will accomplish this.
Add a detailed non-free use rationale for each use of the image if it is non-free. You can use the {{Non-free use rationale album cover}} template.
Fill the template's |cover= field with the name of your file (the full image syntax is not needed here – just the file name with the extension).
Remove the request-photo or request-image template from the talk page of the article.

If nothing is entered into this field, the article will be added to the tracking category Category:Album infoboxes lacking a cover. The article will also be added to the category if one of the following values is used: ???, Nocover.png, nocover.png. Setting the field to the value blank will leave the cover area empty without categorizing the article into the above category. This is useful if the cover does not exist, for example the album was not released yet, or the cover cannot be added due to other limitations.

alt

Alt text for the album cover, for visually impaired readers. See WP:ALT.

released

Original album release date, formatted according to the Manual of Style for dates ("December 14, 2003" or "14 December 2003" depending on the article style, without the quotation marks). The {{start date}} template may be used here. If the day is unknown, indicate only month and year ("December 2003"); if the month is unknown indicate only the year ("2003"). Only the earliest known date that the album was released should be specified; later release dates (incl. re-issues) can be mentioned in a Release history section.

recorded

Enter the date(s) the album was recorded. When there are many dates, it is best to summarize, using the month or range of months (e.g., January–March 2022). For multiple entries, see Notes^[1] for details. Add the location of the recording in the |studio= or |venue= field.

studio

If the album was recorded in a recording studio, enter the name and location. Link the studio, but not well-known cities, states, or countries (see WP:OVERLINK). Remove "Studios" if it appears in the name – use [[Sound City Studios|Sound City]] rather than [[Sound City Studios]]. For multiple entries, see Notes^[1] for details. For "United States" and "United Kingdom", it is preferred that they be abbreviated "US" and "UK", but political subdivisions should never be (never "MA" for "Massachusetts", "ON" for "Ontario", etc.). See Notes^[2] for details.

venue

For live recordings, include the name of the venue (concert hall, stadium, etc.) and location. Link as appropriate. For "United States" and "United Kingdom", it is preferred that they be abbreviated "US" and "UK", but political subdivisions should never be (never "MA" for "Massachusetts", "ON" for "Ontario", etc.). See Notes^[2] for details.

genre

The field should include the music genre(s) that best describes the album. It should come from a reliable source and also be stated and referenced in the body of the article; personal opinions or original research must not be included. Genres should be linked (piped linked where needed), for example, "Rock, pop" should link to rock music and pop music respectively. Note that most genres aren't proper nouns, and shouldn't be capitalized, but the first word in the list should be. For multiple entries, see Notes^[3] for details.

length

Enter the length of the album in minutes and seconds, even if it is longer than one hour. Use a colon to separate the two, such as 71:09; do not use "71 minutes and 9 seconds", 71' 9", 1:11:09, etc. A seconds value must be included; enter "71:00" if the album is timed to 71 minutes only.

Usually, only the length of the original album release should be entered. The timing of reissues or other releases, such as with bonus tracks, should be added to a "Releases" or similar section in the main body of the article, if noteworthy. For albums that are released with multiple track listings simultaneously, only list the most common length or that of the standard edition of the album. In the exceptional case when multiple entries are justified, use {{Duration}} for the second and subsequent lengths: {{Duration|71:09}} will produce "71:09". For multiple entries, use {{Plainlist}} (see the template documentation for details).

label

Only the record label that the album was originally released on should be specified. Where significantly different versions have been released (featuring alternative track listings) e.g. in the US vs UK, the later release date or record label should be mentioned in the article, for example in a Release history section. Drop words like "Records" from the end of the label's name (e.g. use [[Universal Records|Universal]] rather than [[Universal Records]]). For multiple entries, see Notes^[3] for details.

producer

Shortcut

WP:NOEXEC

Enter the name of the person(s) credited as the actual record producer(s). Do not include those listed as executive, co-, additional, vocal, etc., producers, unless a reliable source identifies their contribution as substantially the same as the main producers. These should be included in the article body or track listings rather than be listed here. For multiple entries, see Notes^[3] for details.

Professional reviews

Formerly, a Reviews field was included in this template. Professional reviews may no longer be included in the infobox, but should be described in paragraph form in a "Reception" section. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Article body#Critical reception. The template {{Album ratings}} can be used to illustrate review scores in this section.

Chronology

This group of fields establishes a timeline of an artist's releases. In general, all albums and EPs should be placed in a single, chronological chain in order of release date (singles have a separate infobox, and thus a separate chain). Exceptions may be appropriate for artists with very complex discographies which may warrant more than one chain (for more information, see discussion). If the previous or next release has a Wikipedia article, link the title to the corresponding article. Take care to maintain the integrity of chains, so that when release "A" points to "B" as the next release, "B" points back to "A" as the previous release.

Wikipedia's date style guidelines recommend that years should not be linked within the chronology section. Cover images should not be included in the chronology, as that would not be non-free use.

No more than one album should be included in any of the three slots in the chronology. Some albums can be part of more than one chain, using an "additional chronologies" section. Albums released on the same day should be listed separately, ordered using the standard ordering of those albums, or alphabetically if no such standard exists.

|prev_title= and |prev_year= specify the previous album in the chain and its title. If the current album is the first album in a chain, this field should be blank.

|next_title= and |next_year= specify the next album in the chain and its title. If the current album is the last album in a chain, this field should be blank.

At least one of the title fields must have a value filled in for the chronology to display. If the year displayed for the current article's album is incorrect, then it can be specified manually using |year=.

Advanced usage

In special situations, additional fields may be applicable. Unused fields may be either left blank or deleted.

{{subst:Infobox album
| italic_title = 
| name         = 
| type         = 
| longtype     = 
| artist       = 
| cover        = 
| border       = 
| alt          = 
| caption      = 
| released     = 
| recorded     = 
| venue        = 
| studio       = 
| genre        = 
| length       = 
| language     = <!-- Do not use for English albums by English-speaking artists -->
| label        = 
| director     = 
| producer     = 
| compiler     = 
| chronology   = 
| prev_title   = 
| prev_year    = 
| year         = 
| next_title   = 
| next_year    = 
| misc         = 
}}

italic_title

Per the Article titles policy, titles that are rendered in italics in running prose are also displayed in italics in the page title. By default, the infobox achieves this automatically for album articles. If the page title is not the album title, as when only a section is devoted to an album, and in unusual cases where the title would not be italicized in running prose, such as untitled Korn album, set this parameter to "no" to prevent the page title from being italicized. This will also omit italics in the infobox heading. Use |italic_title = no |name = {{yesitalic|name of album}} to get italics in the infobox heading but not the page title.

longtype

This field can be used if you wish to include information such as the title of the film that an album is the soundtrack to, or the name of the artist that a tribute album is in honor of. The text in this field appears between the type and the word "by".

border

Choosing "yes" here will insert a 1px grey border around the cover image. This is useful for instances where the image and the background will blend together.

caption

If the album has been issued with different front covers, which version the image refers to should be noted here.

language

This field should identify what language(s) are used in the lyrics of the album. Do not forget to disambiguate and pipe link when necessary. For example, if an album's lyrics are in English and French, you would use English, French. Do not use this field for albums entirely in the English language, by English-speaking artists.

director

This field is only applicable to video albums. The name of the director should be linked to the corresponding article. For multiple entries, see Notes^[3] for details.

compiler

This field is only applicable to compilation albums of any kind where the person or entity responsible for selecting the album's track listing is known. For multiple entries, see Notes^[3] for details.

chronology

This field can be used when the album belongs to an overall series that is not adequately described by the artist's name alone; in these situations, the text entered in this field replaces the artist name (from |artist=) that would normally be displayed preceding "chronology". Examples include series of compilation albums compiled by different people, and series of soundtracks (which are often "various artists" collections).

If |chronology= is blank, the first (English) letter of the artist name given in |artist= is automatically capitalized in the chronology header, so that band names starting with "The" appear as recommended in the Manual of Style. If the first letter of the artist's name is stylized in lower case, or if the first letter in the artist's name is not part of the English alphabet, enter the artist's name in |chronology= as you wish it to appear. For example:

|artist=letlive. should use |chronology=letlive. for it to also appear there in lower case.
|artist=Édith Piaf should use |chronology=Édith Piaf to prevent the letter "d" (the first English letter) from appearing in upper case.

misc

A number of templates exist that can be inserted in the misc field, including {{Extra album cover}}, {{Extra chronology}}, {{Singles}} and {{Audio sample}}. If you use any of these templates, don't forget to add a second set of closing brackets for the nested template. However, please ensure if you add additional non-free images, that the use complies with the non-free content criteria.

Template:Extra chronology

Additional chronologies are generally useful for split albums, collaborative albums, and series of albums.

{{Infobox album
...
| misc       = {{Extra chronology 
 | artist     = 
 | type       = 
 | prev_title = 
 | prev_year  = 
 | title      = 
 | year       = 
 | next_title = 
 | next_year  = 
 }}
}}

The artist field should be the artist that this additional chronology reflects, for example one of the artists on a split album. The type field should contain the same type as the rest of the infobox. The format of the other fields is the same as the standard chronology (see above).

Template:Extra album cover

If the album has been released with different album covers, they can be added to the infobox using this template. However, per WP:NFCC#3 use of non-free content is to be minimal, and not to be used if one item can convey equivalent significant information. An alternative cover that is significantly different from the original and is widely distributed and/or replaces the original has generally been held to pass this criterion. Also, an alternative cover that is the subject of specific (sourced) critical commentary passes the criteria for inclusion. Covers that are essentially similar, despite differences in colouring, poses, text, etc., should not be included.

{{Infobox album
...
| misc    = {{subst:Extra album cover
 | header  = 
 | type    = studio
 | cover   = 
 | border  = <!-- optional parameter, type "yes" here to add a 1px border to the cover image -->
 | alt     = 
 | caption = 
}}
}}

The caption field allows for an optional explanatory text. It should mention where that cover was used (int'l release, re-release, censored original, etc.). As with the {{Extra chronology}} template, the type field should contain the same type as the rest of the infobox.

Template:Singles

The {{Singles}} template may be used as a miscellaneous addition to the infobox providing concise information about songs on the album that were released as singles during the marketing and promotion of the album. Promotional activity for extremely popular albums may continue for a long time, and songs from the album may be released as singles a year or more after the album's initial release. For example, songs from the album Thriller were released as singles for more than a year after the release of the album, and such singles are considered to be from the album.

Do not add specialty- or limited-release singles, such as those supplied to radio stations and music publications, which are often marked as "Promo copy" or "Promotional".
Do not include singles that were added as bonus tracks on a re-release of an album.
For songs that appear on more than one album, list the song as a single only for the album(s) where the single was released as part of the marketing and promotion of that album. Examples:
- If a song is originally released as a single during the marketing and promotion of an album on which it also appears, and is subsequently included on a compilation album, list the song as a single only for the original album and not for the compilation album.
- If a song is originally released as an album track only, but is subsequently released as a single to promote the release of a compilation album, include the song as a single only for the compilation album.

For complex release scenarios where it may not be obvious that a single was released as part of the marketing and promotion of the album on which it appears, seek consensus on the talk page for the album.

The output includes the name of the single and its release date, and the list should be in sequence by release date. You may list up to twelve (12) singles per album. This infobox should be placed in the "Misc" field as shown below, using the field cases also shown below. Any unused fields may be left out. Further usage information can be found on the template page.

{{Infobox album
...
| misc       = {{Singles
 | name        = 
 | type        = 
 | single1     = 
 | single1date = 
 | single2     = 
 | single2date = 
 | single3     = 
 | single3date = 
 | single4     = 
 | single4date = 
 }}
}}

name: The name of the album.
type: The album type (as specified above in the section "Type").
single#: The name of the single. Should be wikilinked to the single's article, if applicable.
single#date: The date of single release. Should be entered in wikidate format. If the full date is unknown, just use "Month Year" or "Year". Do not use the {{start date}} template in this field.

Note that all fields are already properly formatted, so italics or quotation marks need not be entered in fields.

Notes

^ ^a ^b
For multiple entries, format the items as a normal bulleted list; don't use other list templates or <br/>. For example:
```
| studio =
*First item
*Second item
*Third item
```
will be displayed as a vertical unbulleted list:
Studio
First item
Second item
Third item
^ ^a ^b As per RfC "Naming countries in infoboxes": When identifying a location, city or region in the United States or United Kingdom, the preferred approach is to use the country abbreviations allowed by MOS:ACRO, such as "Portsmouth, New Hampshire, US" and "Cardiff, Wales, UK", rather than spelling out the full country name. Avoid using abbreviations for states or provinces in all nations. New Hampshire rather than NH, New South Wales rather than NSW, or British Columbia rather than BC (see MOS:POSTABBR). Cities such as New York City and London may be rendered as "New York City, US" and "London, UK" or simply "New York City" and "London". Also, these should not be linked when the context makes it clear (see MOS:OVERLINK). If only the country name is included, it may be written out in full.

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e For short horizontal lists of two or three items, comma separators are acceptable, but for longer lists, format the items as a normal bulleted list; don't use other list templates or <br/>. For example:

| genre =
*Item one
*Item two
*Item three

will be displayed as a horizontal list separated by middots:

Genre

Item one
Item two
Item three

Microformats

The HTML mark-up produced by this template includes an hCalendar microformat that makes event details readily parsable by computer programs. This aids tasks such as the cataloguing of articles and maintenance of databases. For more information about the use of microformats on Wikipedia, please visit the Microformat WikiProject.

Classes used

The HTML classes of this microformat include:

attendee
contact
description
dtend
dtstart
location
organiser
summary
url
vevent

Please do not rename or remove these classes
nor collapse nested elements which use them.

The HTML mark-up produced by this template includes an hAudio microformat that makes an audio recording's details readily parsable by computer programs. This aids tasks such as the cataloguing of articles and maintenance of databases. For more information about the use of microformats on Wikipedia, please visit the Microformat WikiProject.

Subtemplates

Date-of-publication ("published") information will only be included in the microformat if {{start date}} (or, where appropriate, {{start date and age}}) is used in a parent infobox/template. Do not, however, use {{start date}} or {{start date and age}} if a date before 1583 CE is involved.

Use {{duration}} to specify the duration/length of a recording. For instance, if the recording's duration is 3 minutes 45 seconds, use {{duration|m=3|s=45}} (which appears as: 3:45). If needed, |h= may be included to specify a number of hours.

Please do not remove instances of these subtemplates.

Classes used