http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Style/Artist#Area - still somewhat fuzzy mostly because the field itself is pretty fuzzy.

I'm looking at an artist bio [1] that reads, "It's also the studio debut of Wild Ponies, a Nashville-based outfit fronted by Virginia natives Doug and Telisha Williams, who have previously toured and recorded as acoustic folk duo Doug & Telisha." So, would I use Nashville or would I use Virginia? That's the question I hope the page will answer when it is updated for areas instead of countries.

[1] http://www.wildponies.net/bio/

Most of the artists I edit have a clear city.

Some of them advertise it in their social media profiles: for example https://twitter.com/Kahnbristol (even in the username!) or official bios.

Bands often have a stationary city, because you 4-5 members don't just move like that. Metal-Archives has had the city information for years, and I rarely see moves.

There are also pretty localized music scenes, e.g. a techno artist will certainly advertise being in Berlin.

Artist-Areas relationships are interesting, especially if we can also have dates on those, and could be even more interesting for labels (I know of a label that moves a few times in Europe, and this would help editors pick the release country).

I think the area field should go away completely, to be replaced with a set of artist-area relationships. This would allow to be specific about the type of relationship (has the nationality of, is/was active in, ...) and also to have multiple entries, which isn't possible with the current system.

Personally, I think more local areas also make sense sometimes. Say, the Berliner Philharmoniker is a German artist, but it's specifically a Berlin one - it's not really going to move anytime soon. Or a hip hop artist could be seen as primarily from a city - for the average rap fan, "New York" or "Atlanta" says a lot more than "US". In general though I tend to agree with nationality.

Using "area" for countries seems like the most useful way. Country/nationality is a big part of how people think of artists. Using it for a more precise area like where an artist is "based" wouldn't be relevant to most users, and would also lose information every time the artist moves. If I look for all Canadian artists, I would like to include the ones currently living in New York, for example.

"<Artist> is based in <Area>" would be a useful relationship, though.

(based on this discussion: http://musicbrainz.org/edit/31314399 )