ITunes' ordering of albums and/or artists

Question

When iTunes copies a CD, if there's a song or two on it with more than one artist identified, I end up with two or more separate 'albums' in the iTunes music folder. When I'm lucky these 'albums' will be listed together in the library, but just as often one ends up under 'various artists' at the end of the library, and in the Music folder it's in another folder titled 'Compilations'. Is there any way of overcoming this sort of thing and actually getting iTunes to list artists and albums in something like the same fashion as the original CD?

Answer 1

I use MP3tag editor before I import. You can get it free on the web, but you should donate.
My iTunes library is big and slow so it is faster to clean up before you import and you don't risk losing tracks. This editor is also able to load the tags from the filename with a wizard and also has a track numbering wizard.
I use the Album Artist field for the main artist on an album and leave the track artist as is to retain that info. If the main artist has a duet on a track, you can show that in Artist without breaking up the album. It is really the album artist field that groups albums together in the grid, but it defaults to artist if you leave album artist blank.
If there are various artists without a main artist on an album, then I make the album artist = "Various Artists". If it is a soundtrack, then I use "Soundtrack". This way, when I look throught he folders in iTunes, there are less folders to look through and the two I mentioned are all grouped together.
I use the Album by Artist sort order in the library grid and all albums are pulled together in one piece. Rarely they are not and this I can almost always fixed by going to the Sorting Tab in Get Info and filling in those fields, too.