ITunes and compilation albums

I have many compilation albums which i want to add to iTunes, is there a way to accomplish this without spending many hours editing track data to keep each one as a single album. I'd actually like to keep the track data intact and not mess with it at all. Other music organisers can accomplish this without much fuss but unfortunately as i have an iPhone whenever i connect to iTunes for updates any tracks that are not in iTunes get deleted from my device so using another organiser is a pain too.

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.
tt2

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Itunes 10.6.3 - Just update to the new Itunes and the album artwork is not sticking anymore... I upload the artwork and when I change songs and go back the art is gone. Anyone with similar issue ?

Itunes 10.6.3 - Just update to the new Itunes and the album artwork is not sticking anymore... I upload the artwork and when I change songs and go back the art is gone. Anyone with similar issue ?

I have this issue. Album artwork was totally fine before. After this update, it is all messed up and even got messed up when transferred to my iphone.
iTunes doesn't have the artwork anymore, but then iPhone has it but shows wrong artwork with wrong albums.
Please fix!

ITunes WMA lossless and compilation albums

I'm fairly new to apple stuff, so I thought using iTunes would be a breeze after WMP11. But iTunes is not very good; it wants to convert all my WMAs, can't convert lossless WMAs and keeps splitting up compilation albums like NOW 66. I only use iTunes to get music on to my daughters’ new 3 gen iPod Nano. I did think about getting the hudge capacity classic but I think not as iTunes has severely let me down. I only wish WMP11 could talk directly to the iPod!!

iTunes doesn't like WMA files, so it will try to convert them to AAC or MP3. The latter is best as you can still use them on WMA or iTunes.
As for compilations, if you highlight all of the Now66 tracks, right click and select "get info", you'll see down in the bottomleft a box saying "Compilations" - toggle that to yes and it'll show them all together.
Hope this helps
jb

ITunes 8 and Compilation Albums

Hi everybody,
Just wondering why my compilation albums show an individual album for each artist?
If I view the individual track info, it says it belongs to a compilation. If I select the whole album while in browse mode, and then 'get info' and select 'options', it says it is part of a compilation as well, though the tick box isn't checked. I also have 'Group Compilations' selected in my iTunes preferences. Could this be a bug?
Thanks for any tips.
Message was edited by: steve pick

Given all of the other options I had selected, it's part of a compilation, I had the correct setting in the preferences, the album title was the same title for each track of the compilation, I found it odd that iTunes still wouldn't group it. It wasn't immediate obvious what the problem was, which is odd. Album Artist isn't displayed in the browse table by default, so how could I know it wasn't filled out.
I only discovered the 'fix' after visiting the group here and searching through posts about compilations. Normally Apple products 'work' a little better than that. Most folks wouldn't know where to start. I work in a software development company so I knew the answer was somewhere in the application, but the fix was not obvious.
Given 'clelanjh's' advice for the fix, it wasn't obvious to him/her either.
Message was edited by: steve pick

ITunes and iPod album issue

Can anybody tell me why in iTunes it sorts albums disregarding 'the'. For example the album 'the man who' is sorted under 'm'. But while this is sorted like this in iTunes, on my iPod it counts 'the' as 't'. This is really annoying on my ipod because i have so many albums and i want to get to them quickly. I have looked over all the settings on my ipod too. Can anyone help?
Thanks,
R. McD

Hi, Rowan.
I was about to say That's odd when I checked my - admittedly antiquated - iPod and realized that's the case for me as well.
I suppose I hadn't realized because generally I don't access my music by Album on the iPod.
I realize that's not a solution but it leads me to suggest a workaround. Perhaps you could trying accessing the music on your iPod via the Artists entry on the Music menu (Music > Artists > artist's albums) and see if that's a more efficient method than getting bottlenecked by all the The albums under the Albums entry.
Other than that, all I can suggest is you share your thoughts with Apple via their suggestion box .

ITunes and Compilation issues

Well, I think it's a problem many people have, but I have not been able to find a good answer. (Plus I am lazy, to be fair).
I have a fairly big collection of Ministry of Sound albums (all of which are compilations of several artists). I have labelled the Album Artist as "Ministry of Sound" while retaining the real artist and album name.
I have also marked the songs as part of the compilations and selected the box in the Advanced options to group compilations, yet I get this:
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/3039/compilationissue.jpg
As you can see, the list is sporadic and unordered, the albums are all over the place making the cover look horrible.
Please help out. I am using the latest version of iTunes.

Click on the column header for Album.
You can click again, slowly, to cycle through Album, Album by Year, or Album by Artist.
You currently have Album Artist selected. I can tell, because there is a little triangle in that header.
Well done on posting a screen shot! Worth a thousand words, and all that...

ITunes and Compilations Folder

When I am importing songs into my Library, I noticed that sometimes iTunes will put the album in a folder with the author's name and sometimes it will put it into a folder called Compilations. In order to keep my songs orderly, I will move the album from Compilations folder to the singer's folder, but then it will not play on iTunes nor can I transfer it to my iPod. Does anyone know why this happens, and what I can do about it?
Thanks.

sometimes it will put it into a folder called Compilations.
Because the CD is marked a a Compilation.
In order to keep my songs orderly, I will move the album from Compilations folder to the singer's folder but then it will not play on iTunes nor can I transfer it to my iPod. Does anyone know why this happens, and what I can do about it?
Since you moved it, iTunes does not know where it is so it cannot play it or sync it.
You should not move anything in the iTunes folder. Let iTunes do it.
In iTunes, selct teh songs/albums, right click - get info.
Click the Options tab and uncheck *Part of compilation*.

2007 Macbook Pro suddenly coding over files, pictures, deleting itunes and iphoto albums, after it had been dropped in late november 2010. Apple specialists say they cannot find anything wrong. HELP!

I have a Macbook Pro, the last generation, not the most recent one. It fell about 2 feet in late November 2010 and had the screen and logicboard replaced right after. A day or two after that, I started to notice that my word documents, pictures files, pdf files, itunes library and iphoto library were coded over and deleted out of nowhere. When I click on it, it says it is not a compatible format or cannot be read, etc. However, this doesn't happen all the time and not with every file. I could open a new word document and begin it today, and tomorrow it will not be retreavable, but I have a document on my desktop that has been there since January and can still be opened, so this happens without warning.
I have taken it in to the Genius Bar at my local Apple store several times with this problem, and they say they cannot see anything wrong with my computer. On my most recent visit, the lady told me to buy an external hardrive, transfer everything onto it, then do a complete clean out of my computer and reboot it I guess. If it doesn't continue, then that might have been the problem, but if it does continue, then it is obviously not that. I am really confused and I don't know if I should trust that this is the problem or just go ahead and buy a new computer all together. I don't have applecare anymore.
Help me!!! I am desperate.

Does your MBP still have its original hard drive? If so, it may have started to go south. The average useful life of a notebook drive is 3-5 years, and if yours is the original, it would be about 4 years old. The drop could also have affected it.
It might be worth booting from your install disc and repairing your boot disk. It sounds like you could have some directory issues. Repair until there is nothing left to repair. If Disk Utility cannot repair the drive, you will need a stronger utility like Disk Warrior or possibly a new drive.
It also sounds like you may have some software corruption, which can happen if you have hard drive problems. Have you tried reinstalling the OS? You would want to make a backup first on an external drive and then use the archive and install feature and then update the OS.
You might want to download and run SMART Utility:
http://www.volitans-software.com/smart_utility.php
You can download the demo and run it several times for free. SMART Utility seems to be somewhat more critical than Disk Utility, and may be able to detect impending drive failure sooner.
If the drive checks out OK, then you can follow the advice you got from the genius and make a clone of your boot drive using Super Duper or carbon Copy Cloner on the external drive. You could boot from the clone you made and see how your Mac does when booted from a different drive. If all is good, you can reformat the internal drive and clone back to it.
If all you need is a replacement hard drive, then your Mac is likely worth fixing. I too have a 2007 MBP, and I replaced my hard drive right after Applecare expired, as the drive started to fail a week after Applecare ran out. I put in a Western Digital 500 GB 7200 RPM Scorpio Black, and have been running on it ever since. I have also upped my RAM to 6 GB and my OS to Lion. Not all the features of Lion work on a 2007 MBP--the trackpad does not support Gestures, and AirDrop is not supported. Even so, I expect this Mac to last me a few more years.
iFixit has instructions for replacing the hard drive, and OWC has both good RAM and kits for hard drive replacements. My gut feeling is that your hard drive is behind the weird symptoms you are experiencing.
If you are ready for a new computer, by all means get one--there are some great choices. However, you should be able to fix your old Mac for not very much money and get some more use out of it.
Good luck!

Artwork shows ok in itunes and ipod album view but not in ipod when song plays

Hi...
I've noticed somethig wierd with my ipod classic 160GB (v1.1.2).
I have an album with correct artwork. All songs have their artwork. iTunes shows this ok, when getting info song by song.
When I go to the album in ipod, I can see the artwork next to the album name.
When I actually play the album, the first song, the artwork appears ok.
From the second song on, artwork will not be displayed.
Any idea why this could be happening? I noticed this for several albums.
Regards,
Leo

Perhaps this earlier post by Zevoneer may help

Small and big album art not matching

I bought an 5G iPod only ten days or so ago, and I have recently finished to transfer all my song database.
I'm seeing something strange happens with the album art. Sometimes I take a look on the screen, and it correctly displays the song info: artist, album, song title and also the small album pic are OK. But when I push the central button to see the enlarged album art, sometimes the album picture I see belongs to a different artist or album that I also have in my library. It also happens the other way around, i.e, if I display the big album pic and then I switch to the artist/title screen.
Does anyone know how can I fix this and why does it happen?
Thanks in advance
Edit: I have just seen that sometimes the work art displayed is plain wrong in both small and big sizes. I have checked on ITunes and the album art is looks fine there, though. Is it possible that something went wrong during my last iPod-iTunes sync?

yeah mine too, and i've tried re-setting it, and wiping it and re-sync ing etc,
still seems to do the same, and is generally rally annoying seeing how it is such a relatively useless feature, it would be nice if it at least worked...!
any ideas..?

ITunes cannot find album artworks

Hello, I imported some purchased Cd's I have at home to iTunes and the album artwork does not appear. I tried all the ways to make iTunes get the artwork as the iTunes help says and still, "artwork could not be found". Is there a way I can make iTunes to automatically download the album artwork??
thank you

Do you know I have the same problem.
I go to HMV with my daughter and spend time browsing music together. We come home and inport our music. It always finds the track and album names but cannot find the Artwork. This does not seem to apply to odd or old stuff, even chart CDs.
To add insult to injury if you type the album name into Itunes it is there, with the artwork.
Another reason why I HATE Itunes......

How do I put all the songs from a compilation album into the same /album/folder in Itunes v12

How do I put all the songs from a compilation album into the same /album/folder in Itunes v12 i know in other versions it was via get info but as all of the tunes have the same album title , I am not sure what tio change to achieve this ?

I don't see your screenshot but I assume you're starting with something like this, i.e., the compilation split into multiple albums:
If you select all the items that you want to be in a single album, right-click > Get Info you'll see this:
As you say, in iTunes 12 you don't see a field to enter a distinct Album Artist value. You can, however, address this by clicking the Add Field button and selecting Album Artist:
That makes the field available in the metadata dialog so that you can enter the required value:
You can also show the pre-iTunes 12 version of the dialog by holding the SHIFT key when selecting Get Info - this allows you to enter the Album Artist directly:

How can you get a compilation album to show up as one album rather than be split up but song and artist?

how can you get a compilation album to show up as one album rather than be split up by song and artist? I've got loads of albums on iTunes that are compliations and they are all mixed up by track/ artist. Even when you click 'show album' it still just shows the album title and then the artist in alphabetical order - so the album is replicated several times
Can anyone tell me how to amalgamate compliation albums please?

This web page will help you: http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/grouping.asp

Compilation Albums in Itunes 7.0

A problem I have yet to see on these boards with 7.0
Compilation albums will not display in track order (or play in track order!) Some of them seem to go into artist order on the album and I can't work out what the order is for others - it doesnt play the albums in order either - really annoying on mix albums!! kind of defeats the purpose of gapless playback

right - have made further progress with this issue.
If you have an album freshly ripped that is a compilation it will sort tracks numerically. Once you tell Itunes that it is a compilation though it then will sort by Artist within that compilation. It will no longer sort it in track order even if you uncheck the compilation option!! Further more, when I sort using "Album by Artist" - the albums in question do not stay together but Itunes treats each track as a seperate album with each track sprinkled thru the full list - cannot find a way to resolve this yet though!!!

Compilation albums in iTunes 11

This thread is as a result of a post in December 2012, in another thread ( https://discussions.apple.com/message/20450908#20450908 ) by jacdan. I felt it would be preferable if this discussion was kept separate from the original post.
Until now, iTunes regarded a Compilation Album as one with multiple artists, but the music industry and consequently a lot of the entries on Gracenote regarded an album by a single artist - but with songs from various stages of their career - as a compilation. Looking at the Artist list in iTunes, there was no entry for "Various Artists", and albums were instead listed under "Compilations". This has meant for example, that not only was "Now XX listed under Compilations, but so too was "The Whole Story" by Kate Bush (a compilation of her earlier work). If that was the only album of hers in my Library, her name would not be listed in the Artists section. I also found it necessary to fill in the Album Artist field on Compilation albums with "Various Artist".
With iTunes 11, in the Artists section of the Library, Compilation Albums (by various artists) are now listed under Various Artists. I discovered several albums in my Library that did not have "Various Artists" in the album name field and these were listed under "Compilations" instead. Completeing the Album Artist field has sucessfuly moved those albums to Various Artists. The "Compilations" within the Artists section has now disappeared.
However, what is not quite clear, is when or how albums do get put into the Compilation section. I have experimented with the Kate Bush album, and a Mike & The Mechanics album, to see if I could get them to be entered into the "Compilations" section, but without success.
So perhaps this is actually a fix in iTunes 11. It just remains tro sort out why I cannot get Kate's "The Whole Story" into the Compilations section.
Phil

Hi Steve,
well, currently I still cannot force an album to show in Artists as a Compilation. There certainly appears to be a discrepancy, as you suggested. Here are some screenshots, with odd things happening;
I've tried with the album part set to Compilation, but in these shots, the complete album is set as a Compilation. If I look in songs, there it is, between White Island Fever and Why Don't We Do It In The Road?;
but if I then look under Artists, there is no heading for Compilation albums shown at all (not even the other ones we can see in the first picture);
although, when I first found them, Compilations was shown immediately below All Artists. The Whole Story isn't hiding under Various Artists either;
Even more odd is this, in the songs view:
you'll notice that Get Info (an option I use a lot) is greyed out. I then changed views a few times, without modifying the album in any way. Eventually, after several attempts, when I return to the songs view, I can now use the Get Info...
Just teething problems I'm sure. But I can imagine lots of hysterical posts from users who see Get Info greyed out. I'm sure you've noticed that the OTT posts about the delays in the release of iTunes 11 have now been replaced by yet more hysteria asking to go back to iTunes 10 because they don't like 11.
You couldn't make it up!
Phil

ITunes and compilation albums

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