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

Question

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.

Answer 1

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.