Certain Artists Do Not Show Up On Artist List

Question

I recently purchased a new iPod Classic and everything is lovely, but a few artists just aren't showing up on my artists list. The files are there - I can access the music in question through the album search feature - but the name does not show up. Out of my 50 gigs of music, there are only a handful of artists that I am having this problem with. I've tried reentering the names for each of the albums, but to know avail. Do you know why some artists/discs just aren't showing up on my main organizational menu? Thanks so much for the help.

Answer 1

rockmyplimsoul wrote:
Alternatively, just turn off the Compilation feature on the iPod -- go to +Settings / Main Menu+ and uncheck Compilation, and +Settings / Music Menu+ and uncheck Compilation.
I'm not sure that will do the trick. Artists not showing up on the Artist menu is usually because the album is marked a "Part of a Compilation" - as you say.
This is why, look what happens in this case; I have only two songs by the artist Oasis, one on the album *Acoustic 3* and the other on *Top of the Pops 2* . Both of these albums are true compilation albums, that is - they have songs by various artists on the one album and therefore the *album artist* is _various artists_ and it's marked as a compilation. As a result, the artist Oasis does not appear in my artist list. However, if I were to add an album where the only artist is Oasis, the *album artist* would be Oasis and therefore Oasis would appear in the artist list _and in that list_ would be all three albums! (The comp albums would only show the Oasis track of course.)
But there could be another reason! iTunes uses Gracenote to provide information about an album. If whoever created the Gracenote entry has listed an album as a compilation album (the compilation box is marked yes) because it is a _compilation of tracks by one artist but from different albums_ , guess what? It's a compilation! The album *The Whole Story* by Kate Bush is such an album. If that was the only album of hers that I had, she would not be on the artist list, but if I had her *Hounds of Love* album, she would be on the artist list and The Whole Story would show up!
I know - it drives you crazy!
The solutions: if a complete "one artist" album - The Whole Story for instance - is missing, go to *Get Info* for the whole album and mark the "Part of a Compilation" box as No . If you are about to import a new album, make sure the "Part of a Compilation" is off before importing it into iTunes. For a true compilation album (various artists) - that's a bit more difficult. Either accept it or, do you have one track (even the same one) from another album, or a CD single or single song that you can import to iTunes and mark as *not part of a compilation* ? If so, import it in order to create an entry for that artist.
By the way, while we are discussing all this - Greatest Hits albums. If you have albums by different artists but with the same album name, Greatest Hits for instance, add the artist name to the album title (Greatest Hits, Santana) so that your iPod can differentiate between their album and Greatest Hits, Alice Cooper. If you don't do this, when you look at Albums /album title you will see tracks from both albums together on one album.