Grouping various artists as one

Hello all,
I have a question about my newly acquired iPod nano and iTunes.
I have several CD's of the same artist, but iTunes and therefor my iPod sees it as different artists because of small spelling differences.
For instance, if you browse for the artist J.J. Cale it appears 4 times written as J.J. Cale, J. J. Cale, JJ cale and J.J.Cale. This annoys me and I'd like to group all 4 as 1 artist. Does anyone know how to do this without editting every single song info (we're talking about a massive library here)?
Thanks!

While you do have to manually edit the song information, it might be helpful to point out that you can edit multiple track information at once... if you highlight ALL of the tracks that need to have the same artist (click on the first track, hold the SHIFT key on your keyboard while clicking on the last track), and click File > Get Info, you'll be prompted to edit multiple track information. Say yes. Then, you only have to type the artist name once. When you click OK that artist name attaches to each track you had selected.
Hope this is helpful.
Good luck,
CG

Similar Messages

How do I keep imported albums featuring various artists in one list?

I'm new to iTunes and have not figured out how to create a single library listing when importing CD's that feature various artists. iTunes always creates separate library listings for each artist, spreading them across the library in alphabetical order. I can make a single playlist from all of the library listings, but I'd rather that the album just lists as a single listing in the library. (the song order gets messed up)
Has anyone figured out how to accomplish this? Many thanks in advance.

As Zevoneer pointed out, first thing to do is select all the tracks in the compilation album, do a Get Info and make sure they are checked off as "Part of a Compilation".
Next all you have to do is click on the "Album" heading and it will change to Album By Artist, then clicking again Album By Year and one more time brings you back to Album.
As it turns out, both the Album by Artist and Album by Year sort by artist first in the list then either by album name (Album By Artist) or the Year (Album by Year).
Finally, go into Preference and in the main (General) tab there is a check box for "Group Compilation while browsing". Check this box.
Now if you sort by the other two "Album" sorts (by artist or by year), your main library will be listed by artist alphabetically. Then within each artist the albums but alphabetical or by year. And finally, if you scroll down to the bottom your list, you will find your compilation albums grouped nicely together by album rather than scattered all over the library.
Cheers,
Patrick

ITunes / iPhone / iPod / iPad / iOS 5 How do I put Various Artists under One Single Album?

Hello, I recently purchased the entire collection of Now that's that I call music.
It's a compilation album of various artists.
All the various tracks have their own respective artists under the same album name - Now That's what I Call Music.
I sync this collection to my iPhone 4, with iOS 5 and go to my phone's Music>Albums.
Here it shows me multiple times the same album, with the same name - now that's what I call music. Each with a different artist.
I want all these various artists to be under One Single Album. And not the same albums album being shown multiple times for each artist.
Really appreciate if someone could help me out.
Regards,
Jay Parte.

If you have 7.1, you should see the Shuffle option once you select a genre (scroll up, above the list of artists).

Coverflow says Various Artist

I have seen many topics on here about Coverflow....The one things I cant seem to get past is this...I have two identical album covers one of them says the name of the group and the other cover says Various Artist.....the one with Various Artist has one song off the album....Everythign is identical in the Get Info section i.e. Album Name, Artist, Album Artist, Genre....any ideas other than deleting song and re-loading it?????

In iTunes, does that song have a name in the artist box. If there is no name in that box, the Nano automatically adds that name to it.

Various Artist Don't Display

In iOS4 and previous if you set the album artist for a whole album that had various artists to one thing (such as Various Artists) then when you sort you would only see one album. Now, that doesn't seem to be the case. No matter what I try to change, sort artist, album artist, sort album artist, ad nauseum it still displays an album for each artist. the only thing I could get to work is if I selected compilation then at least when I selected one it had the whole album. Anyone else run into this?

I may have a fix, but you probably won't like it. if you purchased the music from itunes, or if itunes has the artwork, you can simply go to Advanced tab and Get Album Artwork. If not you can do one of two things. If it is from a cd that you still have, you can try reimporting it into itunes. Or, go online, like to Amazon, find your album, copy the artwork.
In itunes, go to the album that has no album art on your iphone. Select all the songs, right click, select Get Info. In the box where artwork should be, you will see an empty box. Select the check box next to it and click ok. It will delete the artwork that is there, but it really isn't there. Either the file is corrupt or it is gone. I think itunes is just displaying what was there. What is strange is, in the cases where I have a two volume album, and only one didn't show artwork on my phone, I couldn't copy the artwork from the volume that had the artwork and paste it into the one that didn't. I had do get new artwork externally.
After you have done that, you should still have all the songs selected, so just right click again and select Get Info. Right click in the artwork box, and paste the artwork you previously copied, and say ok. Your artwork should be displayed, and you can resync your phone to download it to your phone. Repeat as necessary.

TS1468 If all tracks on an album are written by one artist, but have other supporting artists, can I group them all as one album under the original artist without having to group them as a compilation and being called "Various Artists"?

I'm pretty sure I've tried all the suggestions I've found, but I can't seem to find a satisfactory option.
I'll use a CD I just bought as an example. I just bought "The Best of Sergio Mendes", all songs are written by Sergio Mendes, but some include Brasil '66. iTunes thinks this album is a compilation, but I really just want to group it all as Sergio Mendes rather than Various Artists, but I still want to have the information about which songs include Brasil '66. For some reason the tab "Sorting" does absolutely nothing, but it seems like the idea behind it would be really useful if it actually worked... Is there a way of doing this or will I have to settle with a more confusing or less informative option? I feel like this must be possible, or else it's a pretty big flaw for me as I have a fair few albums this would apply to.
Thanks in advance for any help.

Indeed, generally all you need to do is fill in an appropriate Album Artist. For more details see my article on Grouping Tracks Into Albums, in particular the topic One album, too many covers.
Don't try to use sort fields to merge different things together as it quickly goes wrong. These should be used consistently to make all things with one value sort as if they had a different one, e.g. Bowie, David to make David Bowie sort under B.
tt2

Grouping single songs under one artist

Hi,
I've been busting my brain; how do you group single songs to appear all under ONE artist? Is there a way to do this without changing the artist field? Has it something to do with compilations/sorting category?
Note, this is for playback on the iPhone but hope this is the right category as you have to do this in iTunes!
Thanks

MusioMan wrote:
Haha, i'm now talking to my email subscriptions so i've gone mad! I do thank you for the help though.
So say you have these random songs;
Yesterday by the Beatles
Hey Jude by the Beatles
Hotel California by the Eagles
Respect Aretha Franklin
On my iPhone, they each appear under the artist name (Beatles/Eagles/Aretha)
There still doesn't seem to be a way to plan all these songs from the ARTISTS menu by selecting say, 'various artist' or miscellaneous.
The only way i can think is rename every artist field to 'various artists' but you loose the artist name this way.
Message was edited by: MusioMan
Nope, the artists menu is just that, a list of artists. If we had an *Album Artists* menu then you could find such collections under say "Various Artists" if you grouped them together with an Album name. Even though we don't get an *Album Artist menu* if you do go to the trouble of creating an album name for this collection then you can just choose it from the Album menu. If you happen to be browsing the artists and notice the Beatles entry you can drill down into it, then the album for this collection then having selected a track, turn your iPhone into landscape mode and reselect the album so that all tracks play. Otherwise playlists may be a better bet, and at least you can then leave these tracks with their original album art and other details.
tt2

When I import an Album or Folder from my computer that is a Various Artist Album it creates as many albums by the same name as there are songs? How do I fix this so it is only one Album?

When I import an Album or Folder from my computer that is a Various Artist Album it creates as many albums by the same name as there are songs? How do I fix this so it is only one Album?

Before you begin the import, edit the properties of the tracks to set the Album Artist to Various Artists and Part of a Compilation to Yes.
For more info. see Grouping tracks into albums.
tt2

Group Different Albums by the Same Artist under one Album Cover

I've read many posts regarding grouping tracks by different artists into one album, but none dealing with grouping tracks by one artist together from different album titles. An example of this would be classical pieces that are divided into different acts, or more recently, the new Green Day album "21st Century Breakdown," which also divides the album into "acts." Another example of this situation could be a box set by a particular artist, for instance an Eagles box set that contains 3 discs of differing titles (disc one: Eagles, disc two: Desperado, disc three: Live) in which case the three CDs are all essentially part of the same album.
I know the grouping field can be utilized to tag all the CDs within the same set to keep them together; however, I have not been able to use this feature to group albums such as those mentioned above together under one album art in the grid or in the coverflow view. It looks rather silly when there are 3 or 4 of the same album cover in a row in the grid or the coverflow.
The best way I could think to differentiate the different acts on an album or CDs in a set was to group the songs in their own folder and change the title of the album tag to reflect which act (or CD) those particular tracks covered. While this works in the list view to keep the tracks in order, it does not allow me to view the album as a “whole” using the coverflow view. It seems the only way to merge differently tagged tracks is if the ALBUM title is the same even if there are multiple artists. I’ve tried using the grouping, sorting, and “part of a compilation” options with no success. Is there any way to merge these tracks under one album art while retaining the different album names?

Adding slightly to the previous post I would suggest that you give each disc of the set an appropriate disc no., e.g. Discs 1 of 3, 2 of 3 and 3 of 3 for Eagles, Desperado & Live respectively in your Eagles Box Set. Record the individual disc titles in the Comments or Grouping field, then change the Album title for all three discs to something appropriate like "Eagles Box Set". The three discs will collapse into one cover and play in sequence. If marking the transition from one disc to another matters you could, for example, simply add the album name in brackets to the first track of each album. You could use curly brackets to distinguish this from other types of track comment. For more organizational tips see my previous post on Grouping Tracks Into Albums, in particular the topic One cover for multi-disc album.
The alternative approach for box sets which simply repackage a number of original albums together is to find the original artwork for each album.
tt2

Having downloaded update 10.5, the artists section of my iPod no longer recognises artists who feature on compilation albums. Instead it groups them under the album artist, ie various artists. Any suggestions?

Having downloaded iTunes update 10.5, my iPod no longer recognises in the artists section those artists who feature on various artists' compilation albums. Instead the iPod groups them under various artists, and, if you are looking for a particular artist,who only features on a compilation, you have to remember or search to see which various artist album they feature on - all very frustrating, especially as it worked OK before the update. So far I've not updated any more - so I've not taken 10.5.1 or 10.5.2 because 10.5 caused me so many problems, but I'm wondering if the solution could be in those updates
I've tried amending the iTunes library artist and album artist, and it is possible to get the iPod to recognise the artists, but the downside is that the library then removes the artist from the album, and you then have to play those tracks individually
Has anyone suffered the same problem and, if so, has a solution been found?

Having downloaded iTunes update 10.5, my iPod no longer recognises in the artists section those artists who feature on various artists' compilation albums. Instead the iPod groups them under various artists, and, if you are looking for a particular artist,who only features on a compilation, you have to remember or search to see which various artist album they feature on - all very frustrating, especially as it worked OK before the update. So far I've not updated any more - so I've not taken 10.5.1 or 10.5.2 because 10.5 caused me so many problems, but I'm wondering if the solution could be in those updates
I've tried amending the iTunes library artist and album artist, and it is possible to get the iPod to recognise the artists, but the downside is that the library then removes the artist from the album, and you then have to play those tracks individually
Has anyone suffered the same problem and, if so, has a solution been found?

Itunes renaming songs and tracks to the incorrect ones, e.g. renaming all Various Artists to be Gym Class Heroes when played on my ipod, and incorrectly renaming tracks at random.

Also some songs are imported twice and named different things? I dont know why itunes has done this, and its on purchased products mainly.
I have switched back all the various artists defaults once, and it has just switched it back when synced with my ipod. How can i solve this issue?

There may be some inconsistency in the capitalizations, or some of the tracks may be marked as Disc 1 of 1 while others are Disc <Blank> of <Blank> See Grouping tracks into albums for more details.
tt2

How can I consolidate a Various Artist album into one album?

When I imported a Various Artists CD to Itunes, it brought up an icon for each individual song in the album menu. Is there a way to consolidate them back into one individual album?

Got it answered from another post, thanks.

I have just installed iTunes on my laptop and merged tracks under various artists to form one album but when I sync iTunes to my new ipod the tracks on some of the albums are appearing as single artists..... WHY???? I

I Have just spent the best part of a week installing iTunes on my laptop, transferring over all my music and merging tracks by different artists on one album so that they all show as one album. I have just plugged in my new ipod classic to sync all my music but the music has gone across in random tracks and split albums.... I really am losing the will to live and am about to throw both iPod and laptop out the window.... So SOMEBODY.... Please HELP.

'The installer has insufficient privileges to modify this file C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Apple\Apple Application Support\Web kit.resources\inspector\Images\Spinner Inactive Selected.gif.'
That one's consistent with disk/file damage. The first thing I'd try with that is running a disk check (chkdsk) over your C drive.
XP instructions in the following document: How to perform disk error checking in Windows XP
Vista instructions in the following document: Check your hard disk for errors
Windows 7 instructions in the following document: How to use CHKDSK (Check Disk)
Select both Automatically fix file system errors and Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors, or use chkdsk /r (depending on which way you decide to go about doing this). You'll almost certainly have to schedule the chkdsk to run on startup. The scan should take quite a while ... if it quits after a few minutes or seconds, something's interfering with the scan.
Does the chkdsk find/repair any damage? If so, can you get an install to go through properly afterwards?

How Do I Group Multiple Disks as One Album?

I've got the latest iTunes update, 11.0.4, and as with the update before it, I'm supposed to be able to group multiple disks as one album, but I can't figure out how, and can't find any directions at Apple.
I've lately begun ripping my large collection of symphonies and operas on CD into iTunes. Operas especially almost always come on two, three, or even four CD's, BUT IT'S ALL THE SAME OPERA, and the CD's come in the same boxed set. On top of that, there really aren't any "tracks" in an opera; the plot and the music unroll seamlessly from beginning to end (that sometimes takes 5 or 6 hours, which goes with the operatic territory).
On my CD player, I'm used to a pause between disks, but now that I've figured out how to get the "tracks" on each CD to play in order on iTunes (not so intuitive), I'd like to be able to go from the last "track" on Disk 1 to the first track on Disk 2 without interruption, since the technology should be able to support that option.
In the INFO box, I've tried keeping "1 of 3," "2 of 3," "3 of 3." No joy. So I've tried erasing the first element, 1, 2, 3, and just leaving the total number of disks. Again, no joy.
Since the album name is often filled in with something like "Carmen [Disk 1]" for example, and since Albums should have exactly the same name so that iTunes can figure out that in fact, they belong to the same work, I've tried deleting '[Disk 1]" etc. on all 3, leaving just "Carmen" in the appropriate space on the INFO panel for each of the 3 disks. Doesn't work.
Has anyone else been afflicted with the same problem?
Has anyone got a solution?

Have you seen this helpful article:
Grouping tracks into albums:
http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/grouping.asp
In the INFO box, I've tried keeping "1 of 3," "2 of 3," "3 of 3."
That is correct. Don't erase the first element, 1, 2, 3, that should not matter.
Since the album name is often filled in with something like "Carmen [Disk 1]" for example, and since Albums should have exactly the same name so that iTunes can figure out that in fact, they belong to the same work, I've tried deleting '[Disk 1]" etc. on all 3, leaving just "Carmen" in the appropriate space on the INFO panel for each of the 3 disks.
Also correct. Also chec, if the "Sort album name" is the same.
Do the artists differ on the tracks?
Then set the "Album Artist" on all CDs to the same name (Various Artists), also check, if the album sort artists names differ.

How do I get itunes to comile various artists cds?

I am new to the posting, so please fogive me if this has already been answered. My kids and I put a lot of compilation albums on our itunes like the Now that's what I call music-where the album is the same name, but the artists are all different. On my older version of itunes, as long as I had clicked on the album info that it was part of a compilation, it would put all of the tracks together. Now on the updated version it will seperate the tracks by artists even though the album info lists it as a compilation. How do I change this?

Hi,
The post I referred you to earlier tries to deal with quite a large number of potential causes for "split" albums. I've tried to keep it brief while giving sufficient detail to explain each problem and the suggested workarounds.
*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.*
Expanding this rather brief statement to address your specific problem first confirm that the "Group compilations when browsing" feature is turned on. Use the menu item *Edit > Preferences* to open the Preferences dialog, select the Advanced tab and ensure there is a tick against "Group compilations when browsing" (3rd option up from the bottom). If you've added the tick, click OK to confirm the change, otherwise you can cancel.
Next confirm that you are using an "Album-friendly" view to look at your tracks. Select *View > List* to switch to the list view. If you don't have a section showing Genres, Artists & Albums use *View > Show Browser* to turn this on. Right-click on the track column headings to reveal a list of attributes that can be displayed. Click on any of the following that are not already ticked to turn them on; *Album, Album Artist, Artist, Disk Number, Track Number*. Repeat until all of these fields are shown. Click on the heading of the Album column one or more times until it reads *Album by Artist*.
For each compilation album, select it's name in the top-right browser window, then click on one of the tracks to move the focus to the Tracks pane. You can now select all the tracks of the album with CTRL-A, then open the "Get Info" dialog with CTRL-I. On the Info tab change/set the *Album Artist* to *Various Artists*. On the Options tab, set the *Part of a compilation* value to Yes. Click OK.
For the *Now That's What I Call Music Series* or other albums containing multiple discs that are displaying as multiple covers (e.g. Now That's... 61, Disc 1, Now That's... 61 Disc 2), select the tracks of each disc in turn and make sure that the correct *Disc X of Y* values are set. Then select all the tracks of all of the discs of the album and type in the overall album title to merge the albums together. Incidentally, for this series I find it much easier to use the shortened "Now ##" title as with the full title you can't tell one from another in the album section of the browser.
You should find that albums are now properly kept together in other "Album-friendly" views whether list, grid or cover flow based. Just don't expect them to stay together if you sort on columns such as Track Name, Artist, Disc No. Date Added, etc.
tt2

Grouping various artists as one

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for