Currently, an artist credit must be composed of one or more structures like this:

1. (Credited name), 2. (Join phrase)

However, there are cases where a leading join phrase prior to the first artist is necessary.  2 examples:

1. Remixed by DJ Command, forced to be entered into the database with a credited name of "Remixed by DJ Command" and an empty trailing join phrase, rather than a leading join phrase of "Remixed by " and a credited name of "DJ Command" (then followed by an empty trailing join phrase).

2. BEMANI Sound Team "S-C-U vs L.E.D.", currently entered into the database as 2 artists:

1. (BEMANI Sound Team "S-C-U), 2. ( vs )

1. (L.E.D.), 2. (")

Because the leading join phrase is not separated from the first artist, this causes the API to deliver data that software cannot consume correctly.  For example, Picard will generate an %artists% value of ["BEMANI Sound Team \"S-C-U", "L.E.D."], treating artist 1 and artist 2 inconsistently, rather than generating the expected value of ["S-C-U", "L.E.D."] where each artist is treated consistently.

The inconsistency that results from a leading join phrase could be fixed in many cases by hardcoding scenarios in a custom tagger script, but ideally, the database should allow the data to stored correctly in the first place.