Sort in iTunes 10 column "Album Artist"

Hello,
I have a question regarding the sorting options in the iTunes Library. I have add a couple of albums which I have tagged accurately.
If I sort by "Album by artist" it goes correct. It shows the albums sorted by artist.
If I sort by "Album artist" it goes more or less correct. The fact that I say "more or less" means I have a strange situation:
I do have a album which has 1 album artist (which is also the artist), however 1 song of this album is sorted as a seperated album.
Does anybody can help me out?
Thanks so mucl
Paul

See http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/grouping.asp
tt2

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Track sorting in iTunes 9 -- Album by Artist and Album by Year mix disc #s

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I am having the same problem! I just got off the phone with Apple Care and they were of little help. First, he denied ever hearing of this issue on a Mac (as I use) saying it was only an issue for PC users. I am proof that you are wrong, sir. Second, he denied that it was a bug and said Apple is not treating this as a bug (great...). He says it happened because the multi-disc import occurred in iTunes 8. I know this is incorrect because these same discs were imported using iTunes 7 and made the jump to iTunes 8 without a problem. They are in total denial on this one!
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How do I make iTunes recognise album/ artist names?

I had to format my computer and so backed up my iTunes collection, all 25gb ripped with all correct information tags. I backed up my music using a program called syncback pro which backed up my files as I added them instead of using the iTunes backup.
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My guess would be that the files in question have multiple tags and while other applications are reading the most complete set of data, iTunes is reading partial information. If you have the files in a sensible artist & album folder structure then my script TagFromFilename might help.
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tt2

Is there a way to sort in iTunes 1st by artist then year?

Right now when I sort by artist the albums or songs go into alphabetical order. When this happens I get new albums or songs mixed with old ones. I want my permanent sorting to be in “artist” order then inside each artist the sort to be by “year”. Then I would like this same set up to load to my iPod.
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HP Windows XP

Sorry, but it's not possible.
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ITunes organizes albums/artists starting with 'The' correctly, why not 'A'?

I am very picky about how my music in iTunes is organized. One thing that I really like about iTunes is that it actually alphabetizes albums and artists beginning with 'The' as they should be. I loathe when a media player does not do this.
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Is there a way I could at least fake iTunes into putting it under 'S'? I don't like it at the top, but also don't like it without the real band name.

I checked with the Genius Bar. It was a new dilema to the lady that was helping me. She took it to a back room and worked on it but it came out the same. She gave me some options for repair or credit for replacement.
I just kept the phone and put up with slowly charging it by plugging it in and then turning it off.
I couldn't transfer anything from itunes.
I finally got fed up and bought a new charging port for $10. and a toolkit for $3. I looked up a video on youTube for the replacement and did it.
That solved all the problems, it was the charging port, must have been some bad pins or something because it patially worked.

Changing Browser to Album Artist?

Hello,
I've got iTunes 7 on my PC and have a question about Browsing by Album Artist:
Can I change the "browser" (turn-on-and-off-able bit at the top of the main song selecty window) to work off "Album artist" instead of/as well as Artist?
Just to fill in what I already know, and to help people who are confused or stuck with iTunes organising things into folders where they don't want them stored...
I have worked out so far that I can fill in Artist and album artist (as I always did in WMP to keep things organised) so I can put Various Artists or the DJ/Compiler/Record Label in Album Artist, and the actual Artist in the Artist hole.
I also noticed that I need to check "Compliation" to make it store it in my HDD under Album artist so it doesn't confuse the **** out of me by spreading everything around into individual song artist directories and stuffing me live when DJing and looking for a particular "record" using Atomix Virtual DJ (which goes by the file structure in windows).
In the main window view I can sort all music by album artist by clicking on that title in the complete song list of all music, (and it being a "compilation").
Also in the big CD cover browsing view (which is nice btw!) it sorts by album artist. Yay! Marvellous!
However, because I have loads of CDs, sometimes if I'm not having a browse and want to go straight to a CD I'd like to be able to use the 1st or 2nd browser view. If I want a Blue Note Compilation, Various Artists, any of my soundtrack albums, or DJ/Record label compilations I have to scroll all the way up and down the long list. If for example I wanna listen to "Keep it solid Steel" by Mr. Scruff, if I choose him in the artist box it won't have anything off that album as it's a compilation by him, and will only show his own songs. WMP will go by Album Artist (even though it actually says Artist in the left Colum on the new WMP11 beta), but I'd rather use iTunes as it seems faster and nicer generally (and has useful things like the backup option). If iTunes does this it'll definitely be my media player of choice.
If this isn't possible, any chance of iTunes 8 being able to select what options you can sort by at the top of the browser?
The only way I've found is to type "Various", "Warp", "Blue Note", etc. in the search box
It seems very frustrating to me if you can't, especially since like all media players iTunes comes with "Genre" which seems far less useful amongst the widely varying crossover artists, styles, and vibes, that music comes in! Can anyone tell me if Lamb are Dance, Drum n' bass, Jazz n Bass, Electronica, Trip-Hop, Hip-hop, Trance, Soul, Pop, Alternative Pop, Jazz? Heck, today I discovered a handful of new musical genres including "Wonky Trance" and "Clown Step"! (see wikipedia if you don't believe me!)
Cheers,
Me
Custom P4 3.0GHz Windows XP 3Gb RAM, 500GB HDD, FX5900 Ultra, M-Audio Delta 1010LT, flashing lights, extra cooling fans to suck more dust in! ;o)

Bollocks! No, it doesn't work nicely as they all appear in the wrong track order! Doh!
I noticed other people have brought this up before in the forum.
I sent a feedback to Apple. Here it is for those of you having the same problem, or who agree, or who don't understand what I'm on about:
Hello,
I've just changed to using iTunes a few weeks ago as it has some nicer user functions (was previously using windows media player) and it's making me very frustrated...
I store all my albums (well over 10,000 tunes I've collected for YEARS on CD!) by the way they come on the CD; by Track Artist for the Artist and Album Artist for the Album artist. Normally for e.g. Michael Jackson, Artist and Album Artist will be the same. For compilation/DJ mix ablums this means the Album Artist will be Various Artists, the DJ/Production Crew, or Record label as applicable. If, for example, I want to listen to my Jazzanova Remixes album I can sort by album artist, choose Jazzanova, and get all the tunes on that album, whilst artist points out who each individual track is by (that Jazzanova remixed). Likewise, if I scroll to "various artists" in album artist I'll get compilation albums, or a particular DJ/collective such as by Mr. Scruff, Blue Note records compilations, etc., etc.
Also this applies to artists where the album may be one artist, but each song artist may be that artist + another, e.g. Artist being Eminem & Dr Dre, Eminem & Dido, Eminem (feat. Joe Bloggs), etc., whilst the Album remains filed under the "Album Artist" of Eminem so I don't get millions of "X with/featuring Y" artists and spreading my albums out in a big mess.
The problem of iTunes filing them in different artist folders for each track on that album on my harddrive can be overcome by making them a "compilation", then it seems to store in Compilation instead.
However, it seems to insist on filing secondarily by artist, not track number/and album, when album artist is selected. This then messes the list up completely as, if I use the artists "Coldcut" as an example, when I go to Coldcut as an album artist it displays the beginning of the "Journeys by DJ" album by coldcut (album artist) from "track artists" alphabetically A->C until it gets to the Coldcut songs on it, then has a completely different coldcut album (Sound Mirrors) of which all tracks are written by Coldcut and the album artist is Coldcut, then finishes the "Journeys by DJ" album by coldcut with the rest of the track artists from Coldcut->Z!
The only way around this seems to be to file by album, then scroll all the way through loads of tunes to get to that particular album, defeating the idea of an easily organised music collection!
This problem is made worse by the fact if I have "browse by compilations" on to help, and use the browser at the top, Artist only chooses by track artist. I then need to go to Compilations and (assuming I remember it's called "Journeys by DJ" since I can't go straight to Compilation Artist) click on the album, from a list of all my "various artist" and DJ/remix/record label compilations.
At this point it gets worse as having chosen the album (for the sake of this example "Journeys by DJ" by Coldcut) all the tracks then appear in track artist alphabetical order since it's either still being browsed by Album Artist as I would have had my records diplayed by that to begin with and it sorts secondarily by track Artist. Alternatively it could be sorted by (track) "Artist" since I'd browsing by compilation. Regardless since I would have narrowed it down to one album with the browser function so "album artist" will all be the same for all tracks, it makes no difference - it is going to be listed alphabetically by track artist.
This means therefore, that unless the album is alphabetically sorted by artist to begin with it comes up in the wrong order!!! Therefore when you play your lovely expertly DJ mixed compiation you bought on CD all the crossfades between tracks don't happen as the album's in the wrong order!!!
You can get around this by then clicking displaying "Track number" too. This seems silly though as normally in a normal view it already shows them at the front of the track listing. You therefore have to have them displayed twice, and then after going into compilations, choosing the album, you then have to sort by track number each time! If you do this, whenever you go back to the rest of your albums they then have all the track 1's first, then all the track 2's, and again you have to change what you sort by (Album Artist or Artist) to make them sensible again!
As you can imagine this is a pain! It happens with all my Various Artist albums, and various other DJ artists such as Mr. Scruff, and soundtrack albums, or record label compilations too!
The obvious possible answers to this problem are:
a) when sorting by the column "Album Artist" make it search secondarily, after Album Artist, by album then track number, then finally "(track) Artist" after that (in case there are no track numbers!).
b) make "artist" in the browser search by "Album Artist" not artist. This is what Windows Media Player does (even though it actually says "Artist" in the broswer), and goes by track "Artist" if there is nothing in the "Album Artist" tag field. it will then search by album and track number, but not Album artist followed by Artist. The browser could also be set to search in both Artist and Album Artist fields to save me having to go through all my 40+ compilations to find an album I know is by coldcut or Mr Scruff. If it did I could just turn "Browse by Compilation" off in preferences and get the same effect. Regardless to stop the wrong ordering it needs to not organise by Artist secondarily if I have it organised by album artist.
Whether the "Artist" in the broswer does Artist/Album Artist/or both could be set in preferences? Also this could change it to file in folders on the harddrive by Album Artist too. I'd far rather have my Coldcut, Jazzanova, & Mr. Scruff, etc. albums in Coldcut, Jazzanova, & Mr. Scruff directories, so when I browse my harddrive it's obvious who they are by rather than apparently being by "Compilation"!
Regardless iTunes should try to put things in the library view in order of Album and track number as much as possible when I have it organised by Album Artist. As mentioned I had been using WMP 10 & 11 beta until recently, but I changed as iTunes seems to work faster and smoother, and has the handy backup feature and seemless playback so I made the shift. The seamless playback made me instantly go to try DJ mix albums to hear them seamless, hence why I became frustrated very quickly!
Also I intend to get a Mac as my next computer so I won't have the option of WMP!
Another thing I noticed was the "Remember position" tag under the "get info" section when you have multiple selections. I wondered if this could change the order it plays them in but didn't seem to do anthing and can't find mention of it in the help or on the forum! What's that for?
If I'm being stupid and there's an easy way to make it work let me know, but I've tried as many things as I can think of, but I think it's reasonable not to have to keep changing the way everything is displayed in the library view to find an album and play it in the right order. I want it to work like the pile of CDs on my shelves and appear as I got them in the record store! If not Microsoft might have finally made something that seems to work in a more user friendly way than Apple, and that can't be right!
...as you can see I also pointed out that it might be nice to be able to get iTunes to file my Mr. Scruff, Coldcut, Jazzanova, etc. compilation/DJ albums on my hard drive by the Artist who released them (or by "various artists"); the same place I'd find them in the record shop I bought them from, and the main name on the album cover of the CD!
I DJ too (using Virtual DJ) and hence DO care about where I find these files on my hard drive, and would like to be able to find them based on the Album Artist! Also when I copy tunes over to my MP3 player, again I want them filed like the CDs I bought them on! I'm not just wingeing about this point for no reason. Obviously you don't care where they actually are stored on your HDD if it's only ever iTunes you play files with, and own an iPod where it automatically copies files for you, but it makes a big difference to me!

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.

"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.

Keep album stacked together by album artist, in a library sorted by artist?

I have my iTunes library sorted after “Artist”. Which gives me nothing but trouble with collections or collaborations.
So what I would like to do is have iTunes to ignore the default or general sorting by “Artist”. And instead sort only this album by “Album Artist”.
I have 12 songs with the same album title, same genre, same album artist but with different song names and artist.
But regardless of how I try to tell iTunes that it has to sort this one by album artist and not the artist, it never does.
I have tried at select all the 12 songs, get info. Write the same Albums Artist, the same Album Title and leave the Artist blank. And I choose sort by Album Artist and under option I choose part of a collection.
But this isn’t working for me, As soon I go back to my library, which sorted by Artist. The albums is still spread all over the place.
HOW DO I KEEP THESE 12 SONGS STACKED TOGETHER, without having to chance the Artist to Various Artists and write each individual artist to the song title?
Which in my opinion is the wrong and oldschool approach.

Yes, I have just checked and rechecked it again. I have set an Album Artist value for each songs and the album in general. And even if i add the Album by Artist to my list view and sort after that. It still acts up. It can't for some reason keep the correct collections together, eventhough they are set as a collection in options.
But i don't really, keeping collections together didn't used to be a problem before. But i will keep trying some different things. But it's pretty annoying, that iTunes has such trouble with this.
I really have a pretty tighty library, everything is named and set up correctly (haha, or apparently not).
But thanks for the help.

ITunes 12: use 'Artist' name in "Artists view" rather than 'Album Artist'?

I.e. if I have an album with artist name X and album artist name Y it seems to sort by Y (the album artist name) in "Artists" view (i.e. the one with the pictures on the left)…is there a way to make it use the artist name (X) instead?
Say artist is "Johann Sebastian Bach", and album artist is "Sviatoslav Richter" (i.e. performer), I would rather it came in under "Johann Sebastian Bach" in the artists view, rather than "Sviatoslav Richter".
…the obvious solution is to switch X with Y, while laborious it does work, however, the problem is then when you have an album were a performer plays a bunch of different composers, this messes things up (breaks up the album in "Albums" and just makes a mess in general)…
In "Songs" view you can just switch between "Use Album Artists" and normal Artists…but in "Artists" view there appears to be no such setting and it seems Album Artist overrides Artist...

.

Album Artist

I noticed that iTunes 7 has implemented a new column:
Album Artist
This is very helpful to me, because I listen to dance music CDs which are compiled by a DJ out of music from various artists. However, I prefer to file the Album by the DJ rather than the individual track artists. So Album Artist is a welcome addition.
My question, however, has to do with how this works on the iPod. I have imported a mixed CD into iTunes, and placed the Album Artist name into the tags for the tracks on that CD.
Next I loaded those tracks into the iPod.
To find music in the iPod, I want to go to the Album Artist and then find the album. But on the iPod, it only shows Artist.
So how would I find my CD by Album Artist on the iPod? Or is this not possible?

Apple, please create an ipod update to allow people to browse by Album Artist soon.
Or better still an update that, for any albums where album artist has been amended, the artist for each individual tracks is overridden when browsing by artist. That way any albums that the aritst has done collaborations on are listed just as the main artist when browsing, and then the album isnt split up and disjointed when browsing by artist.
I assume that you are in the process of doing this already but we can't wait. Come on make it your prime focus for the ipod software update to version 1.3
Aadding album artist was brilliant. Allowing your customers to actually use it would be genius.
P4 Windows 2000
P4 Windows 2000

6th gen Nano doesn't recognize "Album Artist"

I've recently bought a 6th gen Nano and noticed that while my iTunes recognizes "Album Artist" for songs with featured artists, but my iPod doesn't. It'll list, for example, "Matsushita Yuya" and "Matsushita Yuya ft. Sista" as two different artists in the "Artist" menu even though they both have "Matsushita Yuya" as "Album Artist." Both kinds of songs show up in the same album under the "Album" menu.
I've tried listing as a compilation, changing "Sort Artist" and "Sort Album Artist," but nothing groups the songs together on my iPod under the Artist menu while keeping the featured song artist.
Listing as a compilation and changing "Sort Album Artist" doesn't change anything.
When I put "Matsushita Yuya" in "Sort Artist" for a "Matsushita Yuya ft. Sista" song, my iPod just gets rid of the featuring part all together.
I've looked online, but as far as I've seen, other 6th gen Nanos don't have this problem.

My new (5 months old) 6th gen nano started doing the same thing, starting a week ago! I had to trade in my previous nano because the screen went white. Paid 150 for this one, now this again! I see alot of the same problems posted everywhere. Is there an Nano (6G) recall in the near future?
So where do I go from here?

How do I stop iTunes from automatically sorting by Album Artist? Driving me crazy.

How do I stop iTunes from automatically sorting by Album Artist? Driving me crazy.
I listen to primarily classical music
All of my music was very deliberatley titled by composers "Last Name, First Name" as the artist.
iTunes is changing it to the Album Artist. I have to go in and delete that information - AND THEN IT LATER REVERTS IT BACK!!!
Hours have been wasted and I am feeling so ticked.
Any help?

Purchased or ripped media?
If these are ripped mp3s then another possibility is multiple embedded tags. iTunes works best with a single ID3v2.3 tag. Some software creates both an ID3v1.0 and IDv2.x tag. With multiple tags it is not certain which iTunes reads or which it updates, and any device may choose differently. Once songs have the correct info. in iTunes you can use Convert ID3 Tags... None several times, then Convert ID3 Tags... v2.3. The process removes any embedded art but otherwise preserves the data that iTunes knows. You could use my script CreateFolderArt before and after to save and then restore the artwork.
In the long run you may be better off populating Album Artist properly with a copy of whatever is currently in Artist. My script CopyArtistToAlbumArtist can do this effectively.
tt2

Is it possible to sort a 2CD compilation album where each CD has a different "album artist" together as one album in iTunes?

I have an album which I am trying to sort correctly in iTunes.
It has 2CDs of tracks by various artists, it is set up as a 'compilation' and I have 'album artist' set up.
As far as I can see all the settings are correct, however CD1 is a compilation of tracks remixed by "artist A" and CD2 is a compilation of tracks remixed by "artist B" therefore becasue each disc has a different album artist, the album is split into two seperate albums on album view.
Is there any way to get this to display as one album?
The album is released as "Artist A" so for now I have set that name as the 'album artist' for CD2 as well to get round it but would ideally like to have the second CD labelled correctly with the second artist's information.
I suppose I could also use "Arist A / Artist B" for both CDs but would prefer not to do this as well so that it would be grouped with other (solo) albums from these artists.
Cheers for any help!

Your options are to treat this as one collective album by the joint Album Artists, or as two separate albums by them as individuals, or I suppose you could duplicate the entire album and do both.
tt2

Itunes 11 Book author and Album artist sort problems

(I've changed the name here, to protect the innocent and avoid comments about my taste. I shall call him 'Fred Anydude' )
I have an ebook by 'Fred Anydude'. He appears in book view under the [Authors section] in the right place i.e. with those Authors whose last name begins with 'A', (because the sort artist field has been set up as 'Anydude, Fred'.)
Then I acquire a music album, also by Fred Anydude (Hey, what can I say, he's talented). The problem is in the music view in the Artist section I expect Fred Anydude, to appear with the other artists beginning with F (as is the convention for music artist sort order), but he doesnt. He's appears with the A's again. The sort artist is blank in the case of the music album and its songs. So I set up the sort artist for the album and its tracks as Fred Anydude. I switch views, to give the opportunity for a refresh, I even restart itunes - Fred Anydude is still being sorted according to his book view sort artist despite what I've set up for his music: Still appearing with the A's
But to confuse matters, under Album view with the Album view sort order set to 'by Artist', the album does appear along with other artists beginning with F.
To make matters worse if I do a search for Fred Anydude, I only get shown the book in the results. The music doesn't even appear.
Is there a fix?

I suppose a better way to differentiate between album artist and artist is to say Track Artist.

Sort in iTunes 10 column "Album Artist"

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