Sorting out artists in library

Question

2 problems!!
1) I like keeping my compilations tidy in my library, and when i group an album as a compilation, with my preferences "group compilations when browsing" ticked, and enter the different artists in the artist field, the compilation still has all the songs scattered under the artist name and not under the album name.
How do I get to keep the compilation together?
2) To solve the first problem, I've just left the artist field blank, but put "various artists" in the album artist field... which generally works as it actually keeps my compilation album together after the A-Z artists. But with random songs, it keeps adding automatically "various artists" to the artist field when i only add it to the album artist field, so some songs are under V while others are with the compilations!!
How do I stop it from automatically adding "various artists" to the artist field?!

Answer 1

What column are you sorting your library on?
Assuming you have "Group compilations when browsing" checked, sorting on either the "Album by Artist" or "Album by Year" column will keep all of your compilations sorted out at the end of your library, arranged either by Album (Album by Artist) or Year of the first track (Album by Year). The exception is albums with a single Album Artist, which will appear in your Library under that Album Artist. Most compilations should have nothing in the Album Artist field, since there is no single Album Artist, but of course the individual tracks can have their individual Artist fields filled out.
Example: If you have a "Best of the 80s" CD with Artist fields containing "Duran Duran", "Yello", and so on, but nothing in Album Artist, it'll appear at the end of your library, either with the B's (if you're using the Album by Artist column) or somewhere in the 1980s (if you're using Album by Year and have the Date field filled out). If you then enter "Various Artists" into the Album Artist field of the whole album, it'll appear in your regular library under V, since iTunes will think it's really by a single band called Various Artists.
Example 2: If you have an album of songs from the Muppet Show, with Artist fields containing Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy and so on, you may want to put "The Muppets" into the Album Artist field for the whole album. In that case, it'll appear in your main library under M.