Track Order Problem - Album Artist...

I'll just give an example of my problem and see if anyone can help me.
I have a few cd's with various artists, but I can't get the track listing in original order. The Album Artist is listed as 'Various Artists' and all of the track numbers are correct.
I realize I can fix the track order by pressing the Album tab, but I do not want my library sorted by album. I have my library sorted by Album Artist, but all of my albums with Various Artists still list the tracks in alphabetical order of the artist's name.
Anyone have a solution?

Click in the Album column header and sort Album by Artist.
I'm not talking about the Album Artist column

Similar Messages

"Complete My Album" track order problem

Hello everybody,
I downloaded several tracks from Billy Joel's "The Stranger" in January. Just a few days ago, I decided to "Complete My Album." When I downloaded the remaining tracks, the tags were slightly different, resulting in two entries in my iTunes library. The old tracks had "The Stranger (Remastered)" in the Album field; the new tracks simply said "The Stranger." So I changed the tags on the new tracks to make sure they matched the old ones. Now, they are displayed properly as one entry, except the tracks are in the wrong order. I checked all the fields, including Album Artist, Artist, Track number, Sort Album...any that would affect the order...to make sure they matched. I selected all of the tracks and manually reentered the information. Whatever I tried to do, I could not get the tracks to display in the correct order (in iTunes, or the iPod it was synced to.) The new tracks stubbornly sit atop the old tracks, no matter what I do to them. I also noticed that when I press the little grey arrow next to the new tracks, it links me to the proper page on iTunes. When I do the same with the old tracks, I get an error that says "Could not complete your request. These songs are no longer available in the U.S. store." I contacted iTunes support, and they had no idea what the problem was. They told me to post here. So here I am, hoping that there is some iTunes genius who knows what is going on. I'm assuming that there is some secondary tag information that I can't access that takes precedence over the ID3 listings. Any clues? Please forgive my incredibly verbose question, but I just wanted to give a clear picture of the situation. Thanks for your help.
Self Built Windows XP 3 GHz P4x 2GB RAM

Ahh... yep, that was it. Never would've even bothered to change those, because I didn't think it would effect the track order..
^_^ Thanks a bunch.

Compilation Albums are not ordered by track order - by alphabet/artist

This is something I just noticed with iTunes that I would like to have fixed if possible. I've ripped a good handful of compilation albums onto my computer, and when I put them into iTunes, and order the songs by album, all of the differing artists on a certain album are in alphabetical order. Meaning, the track order is set not as track 1, track 2, track 3, etc. Instead, it's set up by artist, by alphabet. For example, Animosity will be first, and Zebrahead will be last...and these aren't in the correct order of the album! I don't know if there is a fix for this, but if there is, I would greatly appreciate the help. Thanks.

*HowTo: Grouping Tracks Into Albums*
Excuse the long post, but hopefully covering all the bases (that I can think of) will help you fix the other issues you are likely to run into as you try to organise your iTunes library.
*Use an album friendly view*
iTunes will let you sort music on many columns, some of which are unlikely to group albums together. The most useful order for editing the library is probably *Album by Artist*. If you're not already there, select the list view and click on the column heading for Artist until it reads Album by Artist.
*One cover, too many tracks*
The iPod (and iTunes to a lesser extent) conflates two or more albums with the same title, most obviously with *Greatest Hits*. On the iPod this can result in one album acting as a combination of two or more. Selecting any cover gives all the tracks of all albums with the same title. The workaround for this "Greatest Hits" bug is to give each album a unique title - I tend to go for *Album - Album Artist* as this reads clearly in the iTunes browser. Alternatively you could use the wording as it appears on the cover or append different numbers of spaces for each different album. Somewhat oddly, setting different values for Sort Album doesn't work.
*Album not with others by same artist*
iTunes relies on the Gracenote CDDB database when identifying CD's. This often marks collections or anthologies of an artist's work as a compilation. In iTunes, however, the compilation flag has the logical function of grouping together tracks with the same album name, but different artists on each track, e.g. "Now That's What I Call Metal 666!". These compilations are then all grouped together at the end of cover flow. Most of us however, would expect "Greatest Hits" albums to be listed with the other albums by the same album artist. For albums which are essentially by a single album artist or group it is best to set the appropriate value for the album artist and clear the compilation flag.
*One album, too many covers*
Sadly the iPod ignores the Album Artist field when grouping albums which causes problems when some tracks list guest artists. You can simply mark the entire album as a compilation which seems to be the way iTMS handles it, however that's not an ideal fix. Short of waiting for Apple to address this issue (and as far as I can tell it goes back to the 1st gen. of iPods) we need a workaround. What I do is to put any additional artist info. in square brackets after the song name. E.g. *Track \[Feat. Guest\]* and then set *Artist=Album Artist* for each track. For anthologies where the Album Artist is credited as part of another group, e.g. for Cream tracks on an Eric Clapton anthology, I use *Track \[As Group\]*. For a track where the main Album Artist doesn't receive a credit, e.g. the first track of the Slim Shady LP credited to Jeff Bass, I just set the track name to *Track \[Guest\]* while still setting the artist to the album artist. N.b. I use square brackets to indicate this is not part of the actual song title and also use this style for Mix/Live/Bonus info.
*One album, still too many covers*
iTunes may split albums into two or more sections if some tracks from the album have different values for Artist, Album Artist, Album, No. of Discs or Part of a Compilation. Tiny differences such as trailing spaces, accented characters or variants of symbols can sometimes be quite hard to spot. The iPod is also more sensitive to case variations and may split or reorder an album that looks okay in iTunes. Normally overtyping the desired value for each shared field will complete the grouping of the album into one entity. Occasionally, however, this method seems to fail. When this happens I've found that you can force every field to update properly by adding some extra text - e.g. a trailing X, which once applied seems to complete the joining of the tracks into one album. Once this has happened the extra data can be removed and the album should remain properly grouped.
*Tried that, there are STILL too many covers!*
The Sort Artist, Sort Album & Sort Album Artist fields can be used to override the normal sort order. For example iTunes automatically drops leading articles (a/an/the) so "The Beatles" are arranged under "B" instead of "T". Occasionally different tracks from the same album can have different values in these sort fields which can also break up the grouping. Making the sort columns visible in iTunes can help with spotting & correcting such problems.
*One cover for multi-disc album*
Multi-disc albums are often listed as *Album (CD1)* for CD 1, *Album (CD2)* for CD 2 etc. To display these properly using just one cover, each disc should have the correct *Disc X of Y* values set, and then the entire album should be given the single title Album. Being somewhat obsessive I also renumber the tracks sequentially, working backwards from the last track (so that no two tracks ever have the same number) until I reach disc 1. BTW You can still give the individual discs different artwork should it be relevant so that the correct artwork will be displayed as the album progresses.
*One artist, many names*
With some artists, particularly classical composers, you should be aware of alternative representations of their names. E.g. 2Pac vs. Tupac. The menus will work best if for each artist you standardise on just one form of their name. E.g. make a choice between Mozart, W.A. Mozart or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and then apply it consistently. For classical music I tend also to use the Composer as the Artist & Album Artist and either discard the performer details or place these into the Comments field.
tt2

Album Track Order Problem

I have recently noticed that the track order in some of my albums has gone all screwy. Even though when I go to >Get Info, and verify that the track order and disk number is correct, they don't appear in the order listed.
For Example, when I sort by album, the tracks now appear in this order:
Track 7
Track 11
Track 13
Track 5
Track 1
Track 2
Track 3, etc...
I realized there were some issues with iTunes version 7, and have updated to version 7.0.1, but even after I have reput the track info they still appear out of order.
Dell Dimension 8400 Windows XP Recently updated from iTunes 7 to iTunes 7.0.1

Ahh... yep, that was it. Never would've even bothered to change those, because I didn't think it would effect the track order..
^_^ Thanks a bunch.

ITunes track order problem

I have purchased an EP by a band, featuring three songs. A month later the band released their full length album featuring the songs off of the EP. I wasn't given an option to buy the full length version, instead iTunes opted for a discounted version due to the songs already being in my "Library". I would have bought the full length despite the songs I already own. When I downloaded the full length album the track order got screwed up. Is there a way to change the track numbers so that they appear in the proper order in the Library? As this is where I listen to my music from, and not from a playlist! This is a huge problem as it misrepresents the artists' view of what the album should sound like from start to finish. This boarders on the same level as a museum curator cutting up a painting and reassembling it the way the want to.

Thanks Turingtest2! This corrected the problem. Your article is great and I highly recommend it to everyone as it also fixed some other problems I was having with some Greatest Hits CD's, etc. Again, great article and many thanks!

How to keep songs in order of album/artist help pls

Hiya,
Firstly is there a quicker way of putting an album on my shuffle other that clicking every song and adding it please? Also I have two albums on at the moment but they are all mixed up, how do i put them in order of album etc
Thanks, Michelle. x

You can select multiple songs at the same time. If they are all in a row (one after the other), click the first one to select it, press and hold the Shift key, then click the last one. Drag and drop the entire selection to the iPod shuffle under DEVICES.
You should also be able to select songs not in a row by pressing and holding the Option and Command keys, then clicking on the songs you want to select. Once selected, drag and drop any select songs and they should all follow.
Also (the most convenient way to fill the shuffle), you can use the Autofill feature at the bottom of the iPod's Contents tab in iTunes. First, make a new playlist and call it "shuffle songs" or whatever you want to call it. Put all the songs you want on the shuffle into that playlist. Now go to the Autofill controls and select to +Autofill from+ the playlist you just created and populated. Then, click on the "Autofill" button. The shuffle will sync with the playlist all in one shot, instead of having to do it manually a bit at a time.
To answer your second question, you can drag the songs in the iPod's Contents tab to reorder them. The sequential order of the songs in the shuffle is as shown when you click at the top of the leftmost column (the one with the numbers). With this column selected (the header should be highlighted), you can drag the songs to be in the order you want.

Track Order Problem: 1, 10, 11....etc.?

My tracks are named by number. So some are called "Chapter 1". Others are just called "1".
The iPod messes up the numbers so they sort like, 1,10, 11...19, 2, 20, 21...29, 3........
I've done all the usual fixes. All tracks have identical metadata. Disc 1 of 1. Part of a compilation, part of a gapless album. All these things are done.
Is this just an Apple bug? Only answer if you know what you're talking about, don't guess and tell me to do something really basic please.
Thanks.

So simple yet so obvious. Many thanks. Apple should really address this though.

Artist vs Album Artist sort for Cover Scroll

I have a huge library of Cast/Soundtrack albums and have taken much time to sort each track by 1000's of artists. And then use new Album Artist to head each compliation as "Soundtrack" "Original Cast" et al... But for some reason certain discs are read in this new Album Artist while others either default to 1st Artist on Track 01 or default to end of Scroll under Various artists - despite my relabeling??? (even though new label does read on the new title)

sidssp is correct. This is how "Album Artist" is intended to be used. But there are two problems with this IMO:
1. Having "Ray Charles & Norah Jones" and "Ray Charles & James Taylor", etc on the individual tracks as the "Artist" and "Ray Charles" on all the tracks as the "Album Artist" is cool when one is searching the library. However, when one is browsing the library this is a major PITA. The browser control keys off "Artist" ... and there is no way to switch it to use "Album Artist". When I search for "Ray Charles" I want to find any track he is on ... regardless of whether he is the main artist or featured artist. I can then select the exact track I want from the results. But when I browse for "Ray Charles" I am looking for a Ray Charles album(s). Unfortunately, the Artist list shows me "Ray Charles & Norah Jones", "Ray Charles & James Taylor", etc. Now I can select all of the Artist entries and get a list of all the albums that I want, but this is really a pain and unintuitive. Which leads me to the bigger problem ...
2. The iPod does not utilize "Album Artist" at all. If one utilizes the "Artist" field to reflect the main artist and featured artists as intended, then there is no way to quickly locate the main artist on an album, and then select all or individual albums by that artist. Which in my case effectively renders the new "Album Artist" field useless because there simply is no workaround.
OAW
PS: This is nearly as stupid as introducing playlist folders in iTunes and not having any sort of iPod support for the feature!

Is there a way to edit track order in the new info window?

The "Get Info" window changed for version 12.1, and in the process, the "track number" fields were eliminated. Is there still a way to edit track order on albums, or has that option been taken away entirely?

Okay. I'm still on iTunes 11.4.
-> Using the new iTunes - Apple Support
"Get Info
To see more info about an item, select it and choose File > Get Info. Get Info has been completely redesigned in iTunes 12 to focus your attention only on what’s necessary for the selected item.
If you’d like to add a field that isn’t visible, click Add Field in the lower-left corner of the Get Info window. You can select additional fields and set fields you’d like to always show. In iTunes 12, Get Info opens on the Details tab, and information about the file can be found on the File tab."

How do I get my iPhone to play all albums by any given artist in consecutive album track order like it does on an iPod?

When I select an artist on my iPod Classic and then select "all albums," I can play multiple albums consecutively without losing the track order of each individual album. On my iPhone 4S, however, when I select an artist there's only the option to select "all songs," and it lists all the tracks alphabetically and plays them in that order, making it impossible to listen to one album followed by another. It isn't a problem if I select one album at a time, as the tracks then remain in their original order from the album, but it won't keep the proper orderings if I want to play all of the music by an artist and select "all songs." Is there some way to change it so that when I view all tracks by an artist I can see them and play them in their original intended track order, not in the alphabetical listing order?

Delete the file and re-download again.

Track order wrong even with "artist-album" sort

I've been having this problem ever since upgrading to iTunes 7 and I was a hard core non-updater until I bought a new computer and had to.
When I sort by Album, the tracks aren't in order. When I sort by "Album-Artist" most are in track order except compilation CDs which had been ripped with Windows Media Player (before my iPod days). When I moved my music to my new computer I forgot to uncheck that little box next to let iTunes do my sorting and it sorted my compilation CDs by artist. Is this why I can't get them in order? More importantly, am I going to have to re-rip all these compilation CDs to get them in order? Is there a good trick to get these compilations tagged correctly? They're all double disks from Germany so I'm worried I'll have to do it by hand.

Album art issue?
(Just a SWAG, but AA has caused these kinds of issues before). Try this -- in iTunes (not in a standalone editor, which may be editing the wrong format tags) select all the songs in the album and make sure they all have the same album name and artist name. Then copy and paste into the album art box the album art (I use albumart.org, but Amazon.com is also a good source for copying). This will store your art into the song rather than album (assuming you may have gotten your art from iTunes).
Reset your phone, restore your phone, and then resync. That ought to do it.

When trying to upload a cd onto itunes it chooses to chop the original cd into 4 separate albums and mix up the track order. Any ideas why and how to overcome this problem? ( the cd is guy gerber and called fabric 64)

When uploading a cd onto itunes on my imac it has choosen to copy the original cd into 4 seperate cds and mix up the track order, particularly annoying as this is a mixed cd (Guy Gerber, fabric 64) . Any ideas why when everthing else copies perfectly and how to rectify this problem?

See Grouping tracks into albums.
tt2

How do I get Itunes to list an album in track order including ignoring featured artists

I recently downloaded Daft Punk's new album after buying it on vinyl. after importing it to itunes, itunes wont list the album in track order. instead it lists the tracks in order per artists. example Daft punk, then Daft punk featuring Pharrel Williams ect...how do i get itunes to understand that they're all the same album and to list them in track order??
thanks

Hi bdm105!
Most likely, this is happening because the Album Artist field is different for each song from Random Access Memories. We have an article about song grouping in iTunes, and it can be found here:
Why aren't songs with the same album art grouped together?
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1468
There are a couple ways to fix the information listed for Random Access Memories outlined in that article, but I want to point out one here:
Albums in which all songs don't have the same Album Artist information
iTunes 7 and later includes a new attribute for song files called Album Artist This allows you to assign a primary artist name for an album that many includes songs by several artists. It is important that all songs in the album have the same Album Artist name. To assign an Album Artist, select all the songs in the album and choose Get Infofrom the File menu. Next, type a name in the Album Artist field name such that it will apply to all the selected songs. This field can optionally be left blank if all the songs have the same album name.
The Album Artist field is shown in the above picture, but it is not highlighted. You will also want to make sure the Track Number field contains the correct information for the album, and information on that field can be found here:
Fixing Incorrect Song or Album Listings in iTunes
http://support.apple.com/kb/ta24677
Thanks for being a part of the Apple Support Communities!
Regards,
Braden

How can I re-sort my albums both chronologically and in track order?

Hi all,
All of a sudden, the correct album track order on my iPod Classic has gone haywire!
I have many, many playlists, containing albums by all my favourite bands, arranged in chronological order. This means that I can start playing the Beatles (for instance) with "Please Please Me", and work my way through to "Let It Be:Naked", playing each album in its turn, with the track listing of each album in their original order.
Of course, I have to tell iTunes to sort "Album by Artist/Year" to achieve this end, and up until just recently, things have been fine. Most of my 250+ artist-dedicated playlists are sorted this way.
Now, all of a sudden, I find that the track order within these albums in iTunes are appearing in a completely random order. The only way I can get the correct track sequence back again is to re-sort the list by "Album" which re-arranges the albums alphabetically, but that does not list them chronologically....
I have tried re-sorting the chronologically dated and named albums by clicking the column header, and when it comes up with sorted by "Album by Artist / Year" (which is where it ONCE was all automatically sorted into correct sequence of track numbers) now, it comes up with all the album tracks in random order, within each album.. It sorts the albums into the correct chronological order, but the tracks within these albums are all messed up.
As I said earlier, if I choose to sort each playlist simply "By Album", then all the tracks on each album are in the correct order, so I KNOW that the correct ID Tag info is still there..
Until now, I have been able to pride myself on (usually) being able to manage the sometimes quirky moods of iTunes, which I have been using for over a decade - but I have never had this problem before.
Please also note that all my 23,000+ tracks have album dates, track numbers, artists, groupings, genres, play counts, and most also have cover images.
This week, I have downloaded and re-installed iTunes 10.6.3.25, but still no change.
Does anyone have any thoughts as to what I can do to get things back the way they were again?
Many thanks,
Rusty Shay

Hello there,
Hi there Chris CA,
Many thanks for your reply.
I just tried using the column browser as you suggested, but it remains the same.
I can either have the albums by any one artist sorted alphabetically - with the tracks in the correct sequence....
Or I can have the albums sorted by year of release - with the tracks in random order....
But not both!
The most curious thing is that all playlists are not affected. Probably three or four out of the 250+ are listed the way I want them all to be.
It's driving me bloody crazy!

Sort order of album ignoring track #

I am having a problem where track 9 of a specific 14 track album is listed between tracks 11 and 12 rather than between 8 and 10. I have removed and re-imported the folder at least 10 times. I have tried all of these things before re-importing:
Renamed the files
Re-encoded the files
Updated the ID3 tags of the files
Still I cannot change how iTunes chooses to sort this album. It's almost as if the secondary sort criteria were not track # but some other attribute that eludes me. This is driving me insane. I can't figure out a way to get this album to simply play in order, other than to create an independent playlist just for that one album.... and that doesn't really mesh with the way I use it.
Can someone help me?
My 20th or so Windows XP Pro

Try making sure they all have the same "album artist" field filled in. if any of them are blank, these get put at the top. or the end... i forget. also, make sure they all say, "disc 1 of 1" in the track info. that should put them in track order.
Toshiba Laptop Windows XP

Track Order Problem - Album Artist...

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for