Assign Song To Multiple Albums (i.e. greatest hits)

Hi guys
I was wondering whether there was a organised way on itunes to assign a particular song to more than one album. Not as a duplicate, but rather so the same song appears within two albums (or more). An example with this, for instance, will be with having all the studio Led Zeppelin albums, but wanting the greatest hits compilation album to feature select songs from earlier albums without the need to duplicate the songs?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

To not cater to compilation albums, or situations where the same song appears on several different albums is, quitr frankly, rubbish.
That situation is catered to, and here's how: You buy or rip an album, you get a file of that track. You buy or rip another album with the same song, and you get another version/copy of that track. Each album has one.
I suppose what baffles me is the decision to omit something like that and force people to have big gaps in their greatest hits or compilation albums, or have duplicte songs to fill in the gaps.
"Force" is a bit dramatic, but if you'd like to express your opinion or suggestions to Apple, here is the link:
http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

Similar Messages

Assign song to multiple albums?

Is there a way to assign a song to multiple albums? For instance, if I want a track to show in Greatest Hits and also the real album it's from, I need to have the song loaded twice; once for each album. Is there a way around this? I know some people use the comments for workarounds, but I don't want to have to use special searches just to find these oddballs.
Windows XP Pro

Is there a way to assign a song to multiple albums?
Unfortunately, there isn't, snowon.
There is a direct one to one relation between a song file and its listing in iTunes.
If you would like to join the list of people who would like to see this changed in the future, submit your feedback to Apple by filling out the form at the bottom of this page .

Assigning a song to multiple albums

I've been collecting a nice library by now and I really like iTunes, but there is one thing not present (or I can't find it).
The option to assign a song to multiple albums, I have a lot of physical CD's digitalized in iTunes and almost a quarter of these songs are present on multiple CD's, as a result, I've got a lot of double songs in iTunes.
Is there a way to do this in the present version if iTunes, and if not, consider this a suggestion for a point of improvement.

Good Morning, NBeat, and welcome to the Apple Discussions.
Presently iTunes can only make a one-to-one reference of a song file to a library entry.
Your suggestion would better be made by submitting by submitting the form on this Apple Support page .

Cover flow albums show songs from multiple albums

I love my iPod classic. the only issue I'm having is that when reviewing some albums via the coverflow feature, about 5 albums shows songs from multiple albums. they play correctly. It appears just the listing is messed up. I've tried deleting, adding the albums back to the library and resyncing, but it's still happening. Anybody seen this?

Try *One cover, too many tracks* below:
*HowTo: Grouping Tracks Into Albums*
Excuse the long post, but hopefully covering all the bases (that I can think of) will help you fix the other issues you are likely to run into as you try to organise your iTunes library.
*Use an album friendly view*
iTunes will let you sort music on many columns, some of which are unlikely to group albums together or put the tracks in their normal order. The most useful order for editing the library is probably *Album by Artist*. If you're not already there, select the list view and click on the column heading for Artist until it reads Album by Artist.
*One cover, too many tracks*
The iPod (and iTunes to a lesser extent) conflates two or more albums with the same title, most obviously with *Greatest Hits*. On the iPod this can result in one album acting as a combination of two or more. Selecting any cover gives all the tracks of all albums with the same title. The workaround for this "Greatest Hits" bug is to give each album a unique title - I tend to go for *Album - Album Artist* as this reads clearly in the iTunes browser. Alternatively you could use the wording as it appears on the cover or append different numbers of spaces for each different album. Somewhat oddly, setting different values for Sort Album doesn't work.
*Missing Artist or Album not with others by same artist*
iTunes relies on the Gracenote CDDB database when identifying CD's. This often marks collections or anthologies of an artist's work as a compilation. In iTunes, however, the compilation flag has the logical function of grouping together tracks with the same album name, but different artists on each track, e.g. "Now That's What I Call Metal 666!". These compilations are then all grouped together at the end of cover flow. Most of us however, would expect "Greatest Hits" albums to be listed with the other albums by the same album artist. For albums which are essentially by a single album artist or group it is best to set the appropriate value for the album artist and clear the compilation flag.
*One album, too many covers*
For true compilations, where each track is by a different artist, the answer is to set the compilation flag to true and enable the iTunes preference to *Group compilations when browsing*. If the album is not a compilation however, any tracks which list guest artists may be treated as separate items. Filling in the Album Artist field is enough to link things in iTunes. Sadly, however, the iPod ignores the Album Artist field when grouping albums so this is only a partial solution. You can simply mark the entire album as a compilation which seems to be the way iTMS handles it, however that's not an ideal fix. Short of waiting for Apple to address this issue (and as far as I can tell it goes back to the 1st gen. of iPods) we need a workaround. What I do is to put any additional artist info. in square brackets after the song name. E.g. *Track \[Feat. Guest\]* and then set *Artist=Album Artist* for each track. For anthologies where the Album Artist is credited as part of another group, e.g. for Cream tracks on an Eric Clapton anthology, I use *Track \[As Group\]*. For a track where the main Album Artist doesn't receive a credit, e.g. the first track of the Slim Shady LP credited to Jeff Bass, I just set the track name to *Track \[Guest\]* while still setting the artist to the album artist. N.b. I use square brackets to indicate that this is information about the track as distinct from the song title and also use this style for Mix/Live/Bonus info.
*One album, still too many covers*
iTunes may split albums into two or more sections if some tracks from the album have different values for Artist, Album Artist, Album, No. of Discs or Part of a Compilation. Tiny differences such as trailing spaces, accented characters or variants of symbols can sometimes be quite hard to spot. The iPod is also more sensitive to case variations and may split or reorder an album that looks okay in iTunes. Normally overtyping the desired value for each shared field will complete the grouping of the album into one entity. Occasionally, however, this method seems to fail. When this happens I've found that you can force every field to update properly by adding some extra text - e.g. a trailing X, which once applied seems to complete the joining of the tracks into one album. Once this has happened the extra data can be removed and the album should remain properly grouped.
*Tried that, there are STILL too many covers!*
The Sort Artist, Sort Album & Sort Album Artist fields can be used to override the normal sort order. For example iTunes automatically drops leading articles (a/an/the) so "The Beatles" are arranged under "B" instead of "T". Occasionally different tracks from the same album can have different values in these sort fields which can also break up the grouping. Making the sort columns visible in iTunes can help with spotting & correcting such problems.
*One cover for multi-disc album*
Multi-disc albums are often listed as *Album (CD1)* for CD 1, *Album (CD2)* for CD 2 etc. To display these properly using just one cover, each disc should have the correct *Disc X of Y* values set, and then the entire album should be given the single title Album. Being somewhat obsessive I also renumber the tracks sequentially, working backwards from the last track (so that no two tracks ever have the same number) until I reach disc 1. BTW You can still give the individual discs different artwork should it be relevant so that the correct artwork will be displayed as the album progresses.
*One artist, many names*
With some artists, particularly classical composers, you should be aware of alternative representations of their names. E.g. 2Pac vs. Tupac. The menus will work best if for each artist you standardise on just one form of their name. E.g. make a choice between Mozart, W.A. Mozart or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and then apply it consistently. For classical music I tend also to use the Composer as the Artist & Album Artist and either discard the performer details or place these into the Comments field.
tt2

Linking songs to multiple albums

Is there anyway that you can link a song to multiple albums in your iTunes library? I find that I often have songs that appear on several different albums - for instance they may appear on the original studio album, but then also appear on Greatest Hits albums or compilation albums as well. I'd like to be able to link the song so it shows up in the track listings for every album it appears on - without having to have multiple copies of the song on my Ipod Touch.
Does anyone know of anyway to do this?

*Is there anyway that you can link a song to multiple albums in your iTunes library?*
No there's not. iTunes doesn't have an option to allow a single song to be linked to more than one album. As you've discovered, if a song appears on more than one album you need multiple copies of it. You can send feedback/feature requests directly to Apple at this link and provide them with your comments. Maybe a future version of iTunes will incorporate a multi-album option: Apple Product Feedback

Consolidating one song on multiple albums.

hello there, i have garth brooks whole discography, but there are a lot of the same songs on multiple albums. is there an easy way to consolidate the tracks but keep them on all the albums so i don't have repeats?

No.
tt2

Adding 1 Song to Multiple Albums

Is there any way to add a single song to multipule albums in iTunes without duplicating the file?
Example: Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville was released on "Changes in Latitides, Changes in Attitudes" album. It was then re-released on "Songs You Know By Heart" as well as "Boats, Beaches, Bars & Ballads".
Is there a way to assign a single file so that it shows up on multiple albums with the corisponding artwork, track number, etc. without duplicating the file over and over? I have run into this situation several times with several different artists and it would be helpfull when you search for an album, to have all of the tracks on that album show up.
I am running OS X Lion 10.7 with iTunes 10.4.
Any advice would be appriciated. Thanks.

Send 'em feedback: <http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html>.

One song in multiple albums?

I know this has not been possible in earlier versions of iTunes, but I hope Apple has addressed it by now. It makes a great deal of sense. If, for example, one has a song in the album in which it was originally released and also has a copy as part of a Greatest Hits album, we should not have to retain two copies of the song to be able to hear it no matter which album we choose to play. Aperture and iPhoto seem to manage this with images—why not in iTunes? Is it possible to do this yet?
If not yet possible, could someone remind me of the feedback URL?
Thanks,
Ben

i personally would love this.....
I have all of an artists albums.... PLUS i have all of the singles from that album...
I would love the same track that is on the album, and on the single to show in multiple album titles....
Eg the song;
Step Back In Time is Track 02 on the Album "Rythm of love"
however it is Track 01 on the single "Step Back In Time - CD 1"
and also
Track 01 on the Single "Step Back In Time - CD 2"
So i have to choose which album i want this to show on... as i am unable to have the one track show up on multiple albums..... even tho it is all the same track....... yet, if i listen to "Step Back In Time - CD 1" it means i cannot listen to the title track as it is linked to a different album......

Same song on multiple albums...

this is kindof picky but it's bugging me:
a lot of times on "greatest hits" or "best of..." compilations i already have an album a song is taken from. i understand i can put the same song in multiple playlists but it's info categories only allow a song file to be associated with one album and position in that album.
what i want is not to have five copies of the exact same song just because it's been included in several compilations as well as an original album. does that make sense?

Yes, it makes sense.
No, you cannot do it.

HT3951 I downloaded the album..gap greatest hits,,but when i played the download.the song party train palyed about a minute and then it went blank.i paid for the whole album,but i didnt get all the songs..how can i resolve this problem.thank you.

I downloaded the album the gap band greatest hits,but one song didnt play all the way through.the song was party train..i paid for the whole album,but didnt get what i paid for..how can i resolve this problem??

If your country's iTunes Store allows you to redownload purchased tracks, I'd delete your current copy of the track and try redownloading a fresh one. See the following document for instructions:
Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore, and iTunes Store
Otherwise, I'd report the problem to the iTunes Store.
Log in to the Store. Click on "Account" in your Quick Links. When you're in your Account information screen, go down to Purchase History and click "See all".
Find the item that is not playing properly. If you can't see "Report a Problem" next to the item, click the "Report a problem" button. Now click the "Report a Problem" link next to the item.

Itunes song in multiple albums but only appearing once

Hi
I'm having an issue, I have purchased several albums, which have the same song on, such as the main album for that artist, then a compilation, however the song is only appearing once, ie if I go to the main album it will be there, then go to the compilation and it's missing, rather than been there as a duplicate, it's missing and I have to download it as 'show complete album' after I do this, it'll disappear from the main album and just appear on the compilation!
Someone tell me this isn't right?
Many regards

Polydorus is quite right. If you're keen to have your library organised neatly you may be interested in some of my thoughts at http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/grouping.asp
tt2

Songs in different, multiple albums without duplicate files

I am looking for a way to have a song in the original album list and in other albums such as greatest hits or compilations without having multiples of the exact same file in iTunes and on my computer.
For example...the song "Tom Sawyer" by Rush, appears on the original album release "Moving Pictures" and subsequent album releases of "Chronicles", "Gold" and "The Spirit of Radio: Greatest Hits 1974-1987".
How can I have the song in all the albums without having 4 files of the same mp3 import into iTunes?

This scheme won't work if the files in question have tags. While it is possible to get two or more entires in the iTunes database to point to the same physical file, when the association is made iTunes will read the tag from the file, then update its copy of that data so you just end up with say two copies of track 1 from album A instead of track 1 from album A and track 5 from album B as intended. There are also likely to be issues if iTunes is set to "Keep the iTunes Media folder organised".
It might work if you disable iTunes options to keep tracks organised and used media files without tags, e.g. wav format. I know you can strip the tag from an mp3 in iTunes (convert id3 > None) but it may still get reinstated next time you try to amend any data.
Finally, when you put data onto an Apple device each track needs a unique source file. I'm not certain of the details, but I have found in the past that if you have two entries connected to the same physical file then, when you sync, only one entry makes it into the device's library. This can create the situation where a number of files are always copied over during each sync even though no updates have been made to the library.
Yes, it would be feasible for Apple to re-engineer iTunes so that it could hold some kind of virtual entry consisting of the tag information and a link to the data from another file. This could all be done within the library alone, or "someone" could develop an open standard that iTunes could later adopt. However I see no incentive for anyone to do so, and it certainly isn't coming real soon. So yes, if space is an becoming an issue, start saving for a bigger drive.
tt2
Weird, I started composing my reply before Polydorus had posted his response above and independently picked the same example track descriptions. Perhaps one of us is a redundant copy of the other?
Message was edited by: turingtest2

Songs linked to multiple albums

I am one of those people who look after their itunes library, making sure each song has the correct name and artist, as well as the correct album artwork. I have about 200-300 duplicated songs, but some of the songs belong to multiple abums.
For example the song "Don't Cry" by Guns and Roses, is duplicated and can be found in the album "Live Era '87-'93" and "Use Your Illusion II"
I could delete one of them but then I would not have complete album. But I wonder if it is possible to make one song belong to multiple albums without having multiple songs?
Also, it is possible would it also work on an iPod?
Sorry about my explation, I am no very good when it comes to explaining things.
iMac G5 2Ghz 17" 512 RAM Mac OS X (10.4.3)

You explained it very well, but unfortunately there's no way to link one song to multiple albums. Each song only has one album field so there's no way to make iTunes list it under two album names.

How do I set up iTunes to keep all the songs in an album together and not rearrange and separate them according to singer / live recording etc.?

When I install an album from a CD, iTunes arranges the songs as multiple albums according to who is listed as the singer and if the songs are marked as being live recordings. If I load an album, I would like all the songs on that album to be listed together under the album's name and not as 3 separate albums!

You are most welcome
Each post should have the text "this helped me" or "this solved my question," or something similar. Just click on whichever one applies to that particular post!
This tutorial has more info.
~Lyssa

IPod Classic can't tell the difference between "Greatest Hits" albums...

This is a strange problem, but my iPod Clasic seems to have trouble telling the difference between different albums with the title "Greatest Hits." It seems to only happen when I use CoverFlow, but when I select an album entitled Greatest Hits, it will show the list of songs, and it will include every song from every "Greatest Hits" album I have(meaning every album entitled "Greatest Hits"--albums that are greatest hits albums but have a different title aren't included).
I thought the problem might be that some them had the "Album Artist" section left blank, but I filled them all in correctly, and it's still happening.
What should I do?

All albums with the same title are grouped together in Cover Flow, Greatest Hits is just the most likely example to make itself obvious. There at least three possible workarounds.
*Workaround #1* Change album title to *Album - Album Artist* whenever the same album title is used by more than one album artist.
*Workaround #2* Append different numbers of spaces to the album title of different albums whenever the same album title is used by more than one album artist.
*Workaround #3* Give each album a different value for *Sort Album*.
tt2

Assign Song To Multiple Albums (i.e. greatest hits)

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