Organize iPod by album artist?

Hello,
Is it possible to change the view on my iPod to show artists listed as Album Artist instead of simply Artist? I know this can be done on iTunes but I can't find a way to do it on my iPod Classic. Even my old Zune could organize by Album Artist. The main problem I am having is some albums have a different artist for each song or a song with be "featuring a different artist." When this occurs, my iPod makes a new folder under Artists. Not only does this make it confusing to browse my iPod, but it takes up extra memory. Can anyone help me out?

Hi, welcome to Apple Discussions.
I'm afraid the answer is no. iTunes & iPod have been late to recognise the distinction between Artists & Album Artists and it would seem that despite changes in iTunes and newer devices the Classic firmware is unlikely to get a make over at this stage.
For workarounds see http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/grouping.asp
PS The multiple covers shouldn't take up any extra memory but it does mean more scrolling.
tt2

Similar Messages

Help! Need my Album- Artist Organization Back

OK, this is similar to one other post but that solution won't work. Here's what happend:
1) I had a nicely built music library stored under My Music. This was created over years using Windows Media Player and other software. The organization of folders was by general Artist Name then by Album with all songs for each album in that album's folder.
2) This allowed me to easily access music from Windows Media Player and from my Slim Devices Slim Server.
3) I am using ITunes now and was happily using Add Folders because I wanted to just have one music library that all software accessed.
4) The other day I got ahead of myself and in ITunes made the horrible mistake of checking "Let Itunes Keep Folders Organized." This then hosed the entire setup by reorganizing all my folders first by artist then by album. So for any one artist it might have five or six albums under that folder.
5) Now in my non-Itunes software the libraries are a complete mess.
HELP! I've tried to go back to Windows Media Player and get it to reorganize back to the ALBUM then ARTIST scheme. That seems to have worked for most of the straighforward albums but not for compilations and a bunch of random songs.
I do not have a backup of my original scheme, or at least one that's recent enough to be worth using.
I need things back in ALBUM->MUSIC order to that I can access my music correctly from non-itunes software/devices.
I know Apple is god and can do no wrong but I can't understand why there is not an option that one can set how one wants one's music hierchy to be. I can only surmise that this is an attempt to mess up how other software works with the library. It would be an incredibly useful addition to the software. As it stands now I feel like I'm back in the late 80's with software manufacturers using cheap tricks to mess up each other's products. Also, checking Let Itunes Organize Folders should generate a huge warning of what's about to happen and the text with that option should be clarified because it now implies that organization will be album->artist not artist->album.
Any help is greatly appreciated.

Hotspot never worked with the unlimited plan, you had to drop it and go with one of their former plans to get it. Is it possible you hacked your iPhone to get it previously and the update has cleared that hack.
You will have to jailbreak to get it if you aren't going to go with the shared plan. But if you are a heavy user of it you will be throttled to about 200k once you hit 3 GB. This will probably alert AT&T to the fact you are in violation of their terms.

CD imported to wrong folder organization Album/Artist instead of Artist/Alb

I imported (ripped) a CD and the folder convention iTunes created in my music library was like this:
AlbumName/ArtistName
instead of
ArtistName/AlbumName
How could this happen. I have ripped hundreds of CD's and this is the first time it has happened. I am letting iTuned organize my files.
Any clues?
Thanks!

Actually I know exactlty what bae77345 is referring to, because I am running into the same problem. Thus my search in the forums.
Usually Ive had no problem in importing a song into iTunes, and changing the song IN iTunes to read as follows.
Name of Song: DAYS `EUREKA OPENING MIX`
Artist: Anime
Album : Eureka seveN OST 1
Album artist: FLOW
And the Windown path would look like this
C:\Documents and Settings\Varxtis\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Anime\Eureka seveN OST 1\1-01 DAYS `EUREKA OPENING MIX`.mp3
Notice It goes Artist>Album>Song Title
Album Artist would not even be part of the path, which is exactly what I want.
but now it shows
C:\Documents and Settings\Varxtis\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\FLOW\Eureka seveN OST 1\1-01 DAYS `EUREKA OPENING MIX`.mp3
Which goes AlbumArtist>Album>Song Title. it doesn't even include the artist as part of the path. How annoying.
It makes a HUGE difference to me because I need everything in "iTunes Music" library in windows to be pathed as Artist>Album: Song Title. I use a different MP3 Player so, it's almost impossible to have half one way (those that have albumartist) and half another (those that don't) BTW, Sorry apple. . .no Offense. I've had and loved an iPod. . . but it died and I got this as a gift.
I never changed any settings, and quite honestly it's been about a month since I had to update my MP3 player music (thus noticing the problem). So, there HAS to be a reason for it to change. And more importantly, a way to change it back.
Windows XP
Windows XP
Windows XP

"Sort Artist" does not work on iPod / How to sort by album artist

I have many albums in my music collection that contain songs by different artists. In iTunes, I have set all these songs to the same "Sort Artist" so that they all appear under the same artist's name (the album artist's name).
However, when I sync my iPod, the "Sort Artist" settings don't carry over. For example, a compilation album with 10 songs by 10 different artists would show up under one single artist in iTunes (per my sort artist settings), but on the iPod the songs show up under 10 different artists. Is there any way to fix this problem? I basically want to sort my music by album artist, instead of just the artist.
The strange part is when I browse my iPod on my computer, the compilation albums are properly sorted under one artist, but it's still wrong when I browse on the iPod itself.

It could be that you have inadvertently imported these CDs into iTunes as part of a compilation. If so, the artists won't show in the artists menu on the iPod.
To check, highlight the tracks on one of the offending artists CDs in iTunes, right click and select "get info". This brings up a multiple song info window, and from there you can check if you have 'yes' in the box marked "part of a compilation".
If you have, select 'no' instead and click 'ok'. Do this with any CD that has this issue. This will alter the info in iTunes, and you should then connect your iPod and synchronize the changes.
The problem arises because the information contained on the Gracenote CD Data Base (where iTunes gets all it's album/artist/track info from), is sometimes incorrect. It can show CDs as compilations when in fact they are not.
You should also check that the songs have album name info in their ID tags.
See: Some songs don't show under artist on my iPod.
Once you add a second album name for that artist even for a single song, ALL the rest of the songs should now show up under that artist, even those without album names.
Providing the spelling for the artists is exactly the same of course.

Turned "Sort by Album Artist" off on iPod Touch 5th Gen so individual artists on compilation albums will show up separately under "Artists" with no succuss. This worked perfectly on my Ipod Touch 4th Gen. Any Advice?

I have a 5th Gen iPod Touch. It is running the latest iOS, and iTunes has the latest update. I have many compilation albums that I imported from CD. I want the individual artists and their associated song(s) to show up under "Artists." I have turned off "Sort by Album Artist" in Settings. This worked perfectly on my 4th Gen Touch. Each artist from a compilation would show up under "Artists" with the correct song(s) showing, while still showing the whole compilation under "Albums." Now, on my 5th Gen Touch, when I try to look at an artist from a compilation under "Artists," I get one of the following: the correct artist and song, an incorrect artist and song, or an incorrect artist with the entire compilation album showing up. Is this a bug in the new iOS 7, or am I doing something wrong? Anyone else with this problem? Any advice?

I have the same problem and I have been really trying hard to find a solution. No success.
My main problem is this: For example: Top Gun soundtrack - I look at Kenny Loggins under artists and I see his albums and songs, plus the 2 songs from top gun. Then when I look at Miami Sound Machine (also on top gun cd) under artist, I see correct albums from Miami sound machine, but under the top gun soundtrack, it shows the 2 kenny loggins songs instead. then if I look at another artist from top gun cd, it continues to show the kenny loggins songs. It doesn't matter which songs i look at, but the first one i start with will always show up on the others. Funny thing is, if I click on the song, the correct song plays, it just says it is the kenny loggins song!!! ha ha. Been dealing with this for over a year now. Pretty aggravating. Happens whether I have compilations checked or unchecked on settings. I have over 50 compilation albums and some are checked, some aren't...they all behave this way.
On Mac, itunes (v 12) it all shows up correctly and works fine. I have become an expert on ID tags and am very thorough with my tagging. HAND TAGGING, not some program that does it for you...they are never correct. I match all my tag info with the info in the iTunes store for each album so it is sure to match. Has taken a long, long, long time.
Love iTunes match, but this one issue is a real pain. Anyone with any ideas, I'd love to hear them! Thanks!

The "Cover Flow" / "Album Artist" duplicate albums problem on the iPod

Hi Guys,
I've made some research about this issue and got to some interesting conclusions.
DISCLAIMER:
1. I searched the web and found people describing this problem since 2006 till 2009 and the solution always revolved around not using the "Artist" and the "Album Artist" tags like they should be used.
2. I did a lot of testing, including re-writing the ID3 tags in different versions and formats to rule out any issues around the tags themselves.
3. If the stuff I'm going to describe is already well known than sorry about that, I just couldn't find it anywhere.
PROBLEM:
An album that has a single Album Artist and different Artists appears several times in the iPod Cover Flow although it looks just fine in iTunes.
Tagging the tracks as "Part of a Compilation" only partially solves the issue since the album will appear in the iPod Cover Flow as a Compilation showing up in the end and not together with the "Album Artist" like in iTunes and like it should.
It seems to be a simple issue around the way the iPod uses the "Album Artist" tag but it also seems to be around forever and it's strange Apple hasn't looked into it.
RESEARCH:
Since I just bought a new iPod Classic, I was again looking into this issue and now I was getting annoyed, strangely the behaviour wasn't the same for all the albums that were suffering from the problem. I found that when the Artist was a combination of, for example:
Album - AlbumX
Album Artist - ArtistX
Track 1 - ArtistX
Track 2 - ArtistX Feat. X
Track 3 - ArtistX
Track 4 - ArtistX Feat. Z
Track 10 - ArtistX Feat. XYZ
In the iPod Cover Flow I got ONLY TWO different albums, one with "ArtistX" and another one with "ArtistX Feat. X".
Well, this was very different from the normal behaviour when the artists are all completely different, in which case you get X amount of albums according to the X amount of different artist names you have.
CONCLUSION:
It seems to have something to do with the dot ".", I reached the conclusion that for Artist interpretation in the iPod when the Artist tag has a dot "." then it stops interpreting. That means that if you had a "." after the main artist name than it will show only once, like in the above example:
Album - AlbumX
Album Artist - ArtistX
Track 1 - ArtistX. <---- NOTICE THE DOT
Track 2 - ArtistX. Feat. X
Track 3 - ArtistX.
Track 4 - ArtistX. Feat. Z
Track 10 - ArtistX. Feat. XYZ
Then in the iPod Cover Flow it will show up only once as AlbumX - ArtistX.
I prefer to use the dots instead of just removing all the "Featurings and similar" since I can still see it normally if I play the track.
So, in the end, a combination like this in your "Artist" tag: "Album Artist"."Artist" would solve the problem in the iPod.
I would love for Apple to solve this issue and I hope this helps.
Has someone else noticed this or am I going crazy?
Thanks!

sometimes the official title of a release does include the Feat. Guest info.
Yes, but only in some (or many) cases. There seems to be no consistency here, as if Apple were paying no attention about where to put "feat. guest". And I guess most of the data in CDDB (Gracenote) still have "feat. guest" in Artist (correctly, in my opinion).
I quite agree that your workaround is the best workaround. I'm just too self-willed (obstinate?, I don't know the correct English) and don't want to pollute my Library with "wrong" data. Most of the problems would simply be solved if, just if Apple make iPods sort/group artists as iTunes do. Sorry but this is how I feel. I guess you can't help people like me. Thank you for your patience.
Anyway, we need a clear document from Apple describing what are the intended uses of various tags, and iTunes/iPods should obey this document. It seems for me that each Apple engineer is doing just what (s)he wants to do, without any guidelines.

Why does my new iPod touch sort music by album artist, instead of song artist?

I recently go an iPod touch 4th Gen. My old iPod sorted music by song artist, but the new one sorts it by album artist. My problem is this: There is an album called Re:generation. It was a project in which 5 DJs each made 2 songs for the album. So I enter the info for each song, but my iPod sorts it by album artist, which is listed as "Re:generation". I wanted the songs to be sorted by the 5 artists that actually made the songs, so there would be 2 songs under 5 different artists. If I wanted to listen to the whole album, I could press the album tab, scroll down to "Re:generation" and play the whole album. This all worked fine on my old iPod, but now it doesn't.
My first solution was to change the album artist on each song to the artist that created that song. But then by iPod list 5 different albums, so I can't listen to the album as a whole if I wanted to. My next solution was to erase the album artist info for each song, but now none of the ten songs can be found under the artist tab. I have to go over to the album and pick which song I want to hear.
If you don't understand, here's an example. 2 of the songs on the Re:generation album are by Pretty Lights. I want to be able to select Pretty Lights under the artist tab, choose all songs, shuffle, and have those 2 songs play at some point. But I would also like to be able to got to the album tag, select Re:generation, and play all 10 songs in order. However, the new setup won't allow me to do this.
So I'm wondering if I can fix the problem by somehow editing the iPod's sort settings (if possible), or reverting back to the old system (if possible), and why Apple even changed the system in the first place. It seems pretty stupid to me, and I honestly see no reason to change what I thought was a perfect system.

wow, i really don't have time to read all that, but i'll give you an hint when you're in music library click "More" and then "Composers" i think that's what you're lookin for otherwise just ignore it

How can I get my ipod to list the "album artist" instead of "artist" in the music menu, but still show the artist with the featured artist when a song plays?

For example, I am putting Kanye West's album "808's & Heartbreak" on my ipod. The track "Amazing" features Young Jeezy. So in iTunes, I list the track name as "Amazing", the artist as "Kanye West ft. Young Jeezy", the album artist as "Kanye West", and the album as "808's & Heartbreak". What I want is for my iPod to have a list of album artists instead of artists, so that I can find the song "Amazing" under "Kanye West" instead of "Kanye West ft. Young Jeezy" or "808's & Heartbreak".
And when the song plays, it should say:
Amazing
Kanye West ft. Young Jeezy
808's & Heartbreak
Is there a way I can do that? I tried using the "album artist" field thinking it would do what I wanted to do, but it didnt. I also tried using the "sort artist" field and typed "Kanye West" in there, but that didnt work either. I wish iTunes was simpler and easier or atleast CAME WITH A MANUAL. Any help would be greatly appreciated THanks

Have you tried a different pair of earbuds/headphones to rule out a pair of damaged/faulty ones? You might also want to make sure the headphones are securely and firmly seated in Nano's headphone jack. Lastly, check the headphone jack for any signs of debris or damage. You may need to have the headphone jack replaced either by Apple or a third party repair company.
I assume this static is present on any track you listen to versus only particular ones?
B-rock

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?

How do I get my iPod Nano 7th Gen. to sort by Artist and not Album Artist?

Why does my iPod Nano 7th sort by Album Artist? And how do I get it to sort/view by just purely Artist like on my iTunes?

Check with the manufacturer of your radio and see if they have a compatible cable.

Is album artist sort available on iPod classic now?

If I buy an iPod Classic today, is there an option to have artists sorted by album artist? Thank you

I'm fairly certain there have been no changes to the classic firmware.
The workaround is to set as a compilation or set a common artist.
tt2

IPod wont show artist songs w/o album

so ive noticed that when im using my iPod ill select an artist to listen to and some of my artists have album info while others dont (mostly because theyre singles or whatever). The problem is, when i select the artist, it will only show the songs with album iformation, so i cant scroll down to find the other songs w/o an ablum that i want to listen to. The only way ive been able to look for those songs is if i hit the play button while the selector is over the artist name, but then i have to press "next track" a whole bunch to hear the one song i want to listen to at that time. Is there an update that I am missing that fixes this problem?

yeah, this irks me as well. I have like 30 some b-sides by my favorite band and i wanted to just throw them in my ipod without album name so that i could see them below the album titles in the artist part. didnt work, so i just "made up" a b-sides album and put them all in there that way

How can I get iPod touch with IOS5 to sort by song artist and not album artist?

Since updating to IOS5 many song artist are missing. I set up iTunes to sort on song artist but when I sync, my ipod tyrs to sort by album artist not song artist. How can I get the ipod touch to sort by song artist???? Most of my Song artists show up under Various which is the entry for album artist. Please help! I have aver 9000 songs with this problem. If I can't solve this issue, I will have to return to using my Toshiba Gigabeat which allows me to sort be album artist. IOS-5 was a step backwards.

Go to settings.
Music> Turn off Group by Artist

Ipod duplicates albums. All the same artist, same everything. How can I fix this?

Ipod duplicates albums. All the same artist, same everything. How can I fix this?
All the details are the same. In my itunes library it shows as ONE whole album. When I import it to my ipod classic 160 gb it duplicates it about 4 times; it's quite irritating. It does that for 2 albums in particular and I have no idea why. Please help! Thank you.

Hi alondres,
Welcome to the Support Communities!
Use the information in the following article to review the information in the iTunes database for the artist / albums you are having issues with. Make sure the information you want is exactly the same in the artist and album fields.
Playing and managing content in iTunes
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1399#3
Editing Info
Each audio or video file in iTunes has several settings and tags that can be easily modified. These options can be accessed by selecting any file in the iTunes browser windows and selecting "Get Info" from the File menu. You can add song lyrics, artwork and set special playback options. The "Info" tab lets you edit information about the file including artist and album info.
Once you have updated the information, close the iTunes application on the computer. Then reopen and resync to your iPod.
Cheers,
- Judy

My songs/albums/artists are sorted under the wrong letter on my ipod - how do I fix this?

After upgrading to iOS5, my music is sorted under the incorrect letter during song/album/artist browsing. I tried deleting all my music from itunes/my ipod and reloading it, but it's still wrong. Any ideas how I can fix this issue?

hey i had the same problem but mine didnt fix after the sync
but if you get this problem again just highlight the track then go to file and select get info after that go to the sorting tab and fill in the info and that should be how they appear for example if the songs name is numb and in the sorting field you put numb aswell thats how it will be shown or if you type in corpses it will show up in the c's
are on your ipod/iphone

Organize iPod by album artist?

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