Keeping compilation albums together in my playlists

how do I keep combilation albums together? I list by artists rather than song and whenever I record a compilation album eg, Buena Vista it immediately breaks down into indidvidual artists and they're all over the place.

I list by artists..... .... immediately breaks down into indidvidual artists....
That's the way it works. Sorting on artists ...... sorts on artists.
The only way to keep the songs together is to sort on album.
Or, mark the album as a compilation (select all tracks, Get Info, and check 'Part of a compilation').
Activate the Browser (command-B) and you won't see the separate artists (unless you have other albums by that artist).
In the Browser, click on 'Compilations' in the 'Artist' pane and all compilation albums show up in the 'Albums' pane.
Hope this helps.
M

Similar Messages

Why won't iTunes group songs from a compilation album together

Most of my CDs are compilation trance CDs. iTunes ignores the facts that they all come from the same album and groups them by composer instead, forcing me to create playlists for songs that should be grouped together. This occurs even for albums purchased as albums from the iTunes store. Am I doing something wrong, or is this just poor programming?

Generally setting a common Album title and Album Artist will fix things.
For compilation albums set Album Artist to Various Artists and Part of a compilation to Yes.
For deeper problems see Grouping tracks into albums.
tt2

How to keep an Album together if Songs are by different Artists

Many albums include different artists or variations of artists (e.g. JohnSmith and JohnSmith & MaryJane). Currently, by "default," these such an album is split into two or more albums in the Library.
What steps/selections are necessary to keep albums as single units?
Thanks for your time.

Generally setting a common Album Artist will fix things.
For deeper problems see Grouping tracks into albums.
tt2

Grouping Compilation albums together

I have a number of different albums that have different artists on them. I want to go in on my iPod and listen to the whole album all the way through, but when I go to it in "albums" it's listed severel different times and each is by a different artist from the album. Is there any way to group it all as one album even though it has more than one artist? I've tried checking the box "part of a compilation" and "sort by album" those don't seem to work. Thoughts and ideas?

Every song on the album needs to be marked as "Part of a compilation" and also, in the Album Artist box, type in "Various Artists". The screenshot below shows the box highlighted when looking at several songs at the same time:
If tyou use Sync to manage your iPod, the next Sync will add that change to it.
If you use Manually Manage, then you will need to remove the album from the iPod first, make the changes in your iTunes Library and then put back the changed version.

How do I keep songs from an album together when importing?

When I import music from a cd, often it is broken into pieces if there is a collaboration on that song. For example, Santana's Shaman album is almost all collaborations with various artists so it is imported as a huge number of separate albums.
How can I prevent this from happening when immporting cd's and how do I put them all together again?

That's what the "Album Artist" field is for. The track artist can have all kinds of variations (especially with Santana!), but the Album artist should be "Santana" for all of the tracks and that will keep the album together. If the Album Artist field is left blank, you will get the behavior you have described.
I usually answer "no" when iTunes prompts me to import the CD when it auto-detects one... then I edit the Album Artist (which is almost never automatically filled out), then I import the CD.
You can edit all of the CD tracks simultaneously by selecting all of the track, right clicking and selecting Get Info. You can also add artwork at that point if you have specific artwork you want iTunes to use... I usually get mine from AlbumArtExchange.com.
If you don't edit the info before importing the CD tracks, you can sort by "date added" after importation to get all of the tracks you've already imported grouped together and edit the Album Artist field there.
You can see below that "Guitar Heaven" stays completely intact in all views even though there are many track artist variations.

Compilation albums - coverflow

Hi,
Having a bit of a problem with grouping compilation albums together in the latest version of iTunes. I used CD import to import the albums into iTunes, but for some reason I can't get the albums tracks to group together (so that only one album cover is shown in coverflow for example) like you would expect them to. Strange thing is, I had no problem doing this on the last version of iTunes.
For each track on the album, I've made sure that the album artist is the same, part of a compilation is ticked, disc and track numbers are both filled in, and 'group compilations when broswing' is checked in the preferences. This worked for me before, but doesn't seem to be now. Funny thing is, there are some tracks that have automatically been grouped together, but most haven't.
Have I missed anything obvious? Apologies as I know this has been discussed before, I've looked at previous posts and other forums but all that is being suggested is what I've already done. Can anyone help me out?

I've got the same problem. Not very good that your query hasn't been answered since June. Whether the solution is simple or not, its a disgrace that you are forced to use software and given next to no support - I can't even find a proper user manual.
Perhaps someone from Apple could finally post the solution. They are happy to make the millions from the software. I'm sure if there was a problem purchasing there would be a response immediately.

How can I sort albums by album artist while keeping compilations together?

Argh, I'm getting a bit exasperated. Basically I just want to be able to scroll through cover flow and see all my albums with one cover representing each album, with all the compilations near the end under "V" for various. Surely most people would want to scroll through their albums in this way??
So I've gone through and added all the album artist info, which has worked fine for the artist albums. But for all the "Various" ones, instead of doing the logical thing and grouping them together by album, iTunes orders these all by track artist. There doesn't seem to be any secondary sort function..
I'm always defending Mac and Apple products for their logical applications and ease of use, and now I feel let down.. If there's a way around this please let me know! Thanks,
Malinna

The trouble you're encountering is that iTunes sorts first by Album Artist, then by Artist. Thus, within each Album Artist, you'll get multiple Artist clumps.
You want to sort "Album by Artist". This will, first, strip out all your compilations and sort them to the end of your library, then sort using the hierarchy Album Artist (or Artist if there is none) > Album > Disc # > Track #. Click the Album column header until Album by Artist is displayed. (You can also choose Album by Year, which will sort albums chronologically within Album Artist.)
If you want to keep albums together, you'll need to sort on an Album column; other columns are bound to clump things by whatever you're sorting on.

How to keep songs from the same album together in the Walkman app?

How do I keep songs from the same album together in one album instead of it being spilt up into three different albums? Is there any way to keep this from happening? I have all of the correct album information, but it still happens. I thought I would use Media Go and see if it helps but it never works properly.
Any suggestions would be much appreicated.

Make sure your Album information in mp3 tags is all the same in all tracks belonging to the same album.
Clear the cache memory of Storage Media service
https://talk.sonymobile.com/t5/WALKMAN/Multiple-Song-and-playlist-appear/m-p/732329?sl=y&sso_no_log=...
If, despite having the same album information in mp3 tags and clearing cache memory, you still get multiple entries or songs belonging to the same album are split into 2-3 albums, then I suggest an easy way.
Use Winamp and create an *.m3u playlist in the same directory you have the mp3 files stored in your phone. This playlist will then appear in Playlists - My Playlists and you will be able to enjoy your music in correct order of tracks and all the tracks will be there.
That is my method (using m3u Winamp playlists) simply because Walkman app does not respect the Track Number tag in mp3 files belonging to the same album and rather sorts the tracks within the same album based on Date Created.

Compilation Albums playlist

Hi all,
I have built a smart playlist that picks up all my compilation albums (albums with multiple artists). These list fine in Itunes, but is it possible to change the settings so, when I open the playlist in my ipod, I see a list of albums instead of it going straight to a list of songs?
My ipod is a 30gb 5th gen video.
Athlon 4200+ X2 PC Windows XP

Hello Mr. Jolly Giant, thanks for the article, but it still doesn't help with my problem. I don't have ANY problems when it comes to compilations within iTunes, and how to group them, etc. iTunes is a breeze for me.
The problem I am facing is within the iPOD TOUCH: I need to be able specify (like in the older ipods) that I want the "Compilation" option ON, and hence it keeps all the compilations/soundtracks and their artists within the Compilation playlist, and hence all the artists within these soundtracks/compilations DO NOT show up again (they aren't duplicated) under the "Artists" playlist.
Am I making any sense, or is my explanation completely incoherent? Thanks once again for your help though! Appreciate it.

How do I group together songs on a compilation album 10.5

How do i group together songs that are off a single compilation album? I get a different album for every artist and i want them togther in the order they should be.

Click on the column header so it no longer says Album by Artist, but just Album.

Keeping songs in the same album together

Because I am traveling for a while, I moved my iTunes library from my iMac to my MacBook Pro. Now, when I open it up, I find that a number of albums have their songs scattered over several different albums, all of the same nsme (even though the library on the iMac displayed songs in the same album together. When I do a get info on the songs (from the same album that appear in different albums), the information appears to be identical, but I am unable to figure out a way to get the songs together in the same album.
For what it is worth, I copied the iTunes folder from the iMac to the MacBook Pro, and dragged it over to an open iTunes window. I also lost quite a few pieces of album art in the process.

Look at Steve MacGuire's helpful article for your solution: http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/grouping.asp

HT1473 When I add a audio CD to iTunes it doesn't keep it under one album cover like it does when I purchase an album from the store. That creates a lot of clutter. How can I keep it all together?

As above.

For reasons known only to apple, the main sort priority now is the artist. ANd when you have a compilation album you end up with multiple 'albums' that are really one. You can right click on the songs and edit the info for each song, making the info right for all of them.....it may not be perfect but it works for me. (My music is all ripped from cd's and not downloaded from Apple)
In your case, you could mark each song as 'various artists' and then they'll all be under the same cover

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 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

Compilation Album sorting trick

As you now know, you can group tracks in a compilation and assign an 'album artist' to display the main artist with the album cover. But the compilations sort to the bottom of the library by date. If you want to sort the album by main artist alphabetically amongst your other artists do this: Use 'album artist' to keep the tracks together as before, but change the individual artist of the
First track to begin with your main artist: For example 'Angelo Baldalementi/David Bowie', then select all the tracks and change compilation to 'No'. The album now sorts all the tracks together under the first track by the first track artist when you sort column 'Album'.
If you are as fussy as me, this may help.
One wish for iTunes sorting: A check box for the Artist field that would allow you to sort by artist last name, and not just by total artist name.

Starmac74 wrote:
I recently bought a compilation album from itunes store. My problem is that each song shows up as a seperate album, both in cover flow and when I list by Album. This is very annoying and all the songs has the same Album name.
What do I need to do to make iTunes understand that all songs belong to the same compilation album?
hi marcus,
see this great post by TT2

Keeping compilation albums together in my playlists

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