Michaelrulesify

Q: Why is iTunes putting same artist multiple times?

I recently added a song to iTunes (from soundcloud) and edited the metadata to add the artist name. It showed up as a separate tab in iTunes even though it was the same name artist? Then I removed the name from all songs and renamed them the same artist, now all the songs are in separate tabs?Screen Shot 2016-01-12 at 3.42.00 PM.png

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2), iTunes 12.3.2.35

Posted on Jan 12, 2016 12:47 PM

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Q: Why is iTunes putting same artist multiple times?

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  • by ChooseWell,

    ChooseWell ChooseWell Jan 13, 2016 4:24 AM in response to Michaelrulesify
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 13, 2016 4:24 AM in response to Michaelrulesify

    I also have this problem. I have tried everything I can find through Google e.g. Adding Album Artist, grouping as a compilation (which it is not), deleting and re-entering the Album name and Album Artist name. I have even tried deleting the Disc X of Y data. Nothing works...

  • by Jimzgoldfinch,

    Jimzgoldfinch Jimzgoldfinch Jan 13, 2016 6:54 AM in response to Michaelrulesify
    Level 6 (9,049 points)
    iTunes
    Jan 13, 2016 6:54 AM in response to Michaelrulesify

    Hi,

    When I have had this issue, I have selected all the tracks, deleted artist and album artist then click OK. I selected all tracks again and entered Artist name and Album artist name then clicked OK

     

    Jim

  • by ChooseWell,

    ChooseWell ChooseWell Jan 14, 2016 5:54 AM in response to Jimzgoldfinch
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 14, 2016 5:54 AM in response to Jimzgoldfinch

    Hi Jim

     

    Thanks for your reply. I have tried this with Album name, Album Artist, Disc Number. I don't really want to try it with Artist Name since some of the tracks have "feat. blah blah" as part of the name. I will try though and maybe I can put those in the Comments field while I see if it makes a difference.

     

    If the Album Artist field is working properly this shouldn't be necessary. The weird thing about it is that the artist name in all the left hand entries are exactly the same (I have deleted them from all the affected songs and then re-entered them). The other weird thing about it is the grouping of the tracks into the different examples of the same artist name. It doesn't seem to act consistently - e.g. I would understand if all the tracks where the Artist name is the same as the Album Artist name were grouped together, but they are NOT. There are groups where on some tracks the fields match and others they don't - bizarre!

     

    Will report back when I have changed the Artist name also...

     

    cheers

    Lawrence

  • by ChooseWell,

    ChooseWell ChooseWell Jan 14, 2016 6:21 AM in response to ChooseWell
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 14, 2016 6:21 AM in response to ChooseWell

    OK, now I think that there are some bugs in the iTunes software that creates the Artists list on the left-hand side of the screen, in my version (12.3.2.35) running on OSX 10.9.5.

     

    Here is what I have just done:

     

    1. I deleted all the Artist names in the album that is misbehaving (and put all the extended Artist names that I want to keep in the Comments field of each track).
    2. I replaced all the Artist names so that they are identical to the Album Artist name. At this stage all of the track of this album were collected under a single Artist name on the left hand section (in Artists view). The problem being that the other two albums by this artist then still showed as a separate item (with identical Artist name) on the left-hand section. So now I have two Craig Armstrong artists listed, one with a single album and the second one with two other albums.
    3. Next I selected all of the track from all three albums, deleted the Album name, Artist name and Album Artist name, then replaced all three in all of the tracks. What happened after I did that is that ALL of the tracks from ALL THREE of the albums are now showing as completely separate entries in the left-hand section, each one of them containing a single track!! So this is a worse outcome than I have had the rest of the time!
    4. I have checked and ALL of the fields Album name, Artist name and Album Artist name are the same for all of the tracks.
    5. Finally I again selected all of the tracks in the original offending album and again deleted Album name, Artist name and Album Artist name from all 15 tracks, went back to Album view, then to Artist view, then back to Song view and re-entered all of the data for all 15 tracks. The album still shows as 15 different Artist names on the right hand side of the screen, each of them with a single track.

     

    Does anyone have any idea what is going on here please? Apple Support team, do you actually monitor these discussions, or do you just leave it to users to help each other directly?

     

    Here is a screen shot if that helps (the other two albums by the same artist have the identical problem now):

    Screen Shot 2016-01-14 at 03.17.17 pm.png

    cheers

    Lawrence

  • by welshcatholic,

    welshcatholic welshcatholic Jan 14, 2016 8:14 AM in response to ChooseWell
    Level 2 (237 points)
    Jan 14, 2016 8:14 AM in response to ChooseWell

    I have over 8,000 tracks on iTunes and time and time again this issue appears .... I will remind people that typed text is read as digital code and sometimes iTunes gets a little confused with spaces in the text .. That being said, taking one track and selecting the artist name » album artist » album artist does not always work... Myself, I always follow these steps ..

    Screen Shot 2016-01-14 at 15.47.23.pngScreen Shot 2016-01-14 at 15.55.58.png

    1. I copy the artist name and paste it to all the get info of each track

    2. I then change all but one track with A! in each artist and and album artist and album.... I keep one as a control.

    3. I then copy from the control track the artist name and all other relevant information that is required to group them together.

     

    Okay, you might find that only some of the track group together. Next step is to get them all together. Copy the rouge track to the desktop and delete them from the iTunes library to the TRASH. Then, making sure you are on that artists page in your iTunes library , add the tracks to your library.

    Screen Shot 2016-01-14 at 16.00.47.png

    Screen Shot 2016-01-14 at 15.58.55.png

    Screen Shot 2016-01-14 at 15.59.18.png

    Screen Shot 2016-01-14 at 16.00.11.png

    Screen Shot 2016-01-14 at 16.00.25.png

    These are just a few of the steps I've take... and remember, as I always say, when you copy and paste, make sure you are only copying the TEXT and no spaces after it... a space is readable by iTunes as a character!

    Note - You might have to quit iTunes completely, the restart it and then add the tracks from the desktop... try different steps and see what happens...

  • by welshcatholic,

    welshcatholic welshcatholic Jan 16, 2016 9:46 AM in response to welshcatholic
    Level 2 (237 points)
    Jan 16, 2016 9:46 AM in response to welshcatholic

    Look where the cursor is flashing on the album artist !!!!!  Different places.

     

    Screen Shot 2016-01-14 at 16.07.58.png

    Screen Shot 2016-01-14 at 16.08.24.png

  • by ChooseWell,

    ChooseWell ChooseWell Jan 14, 2016 8:42 AM in response to welshcatholic
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 14, 2016 8:42 AM in response to welshcatholic

    Thanks for the detailed suggestions @welshcatholic. Much appreciated!

     

    I just followed what you suggested and copied the tracks for all three albums onto the desktop, deleted them from iTunes and then re-added them to the library.

     

    And they all magically now appear in the same single Artist entry in the left-hand section! Amazing! Not sure what difference it makes removing the same tracks and re-opening them, but for now am just happy that it worked ...

     

    And BTW I know that additional spaces would cause a problem, but surely that wouldn't be the case with my example since I have selected ALL the tracks and entered the same data for all of them at the same time. Useful to mention it though of course.

     

    Thanks again!

     

    Note to Apple support team - can you explain why this is happening please?

     

    cheers

    Lawrence

  • by welshcatholic,

    welshcatholic welshcatholic Jan 14, 2016 9:13 AM in response to ChooseWell
    Level 2 (237 points)
    Jan 14, 2016 9:13 AM in response to ChooseWell

    I hear you   But it's iTunes ... Hopefully the updates in the net one will fix the issue... if not, it's the hard way

     

    Glad it helped you

  • by ChooseWell,

    ChooseWell ChooseWell Jan 15, 2016 12:18 AM in response to welshcatholic
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 15, 2016 12:18 AM in response to welshcatholic

    Yes, you would think that they wouldn't have problems of such a core nature in version 12.X.X.X.X of a product?!?!

     

    Thanks again

  • by Michaelrulesify,Solvedanswer

    Michaelrulesify Michaelrulesify Jan 16, 2016 9:48 AM in response to Michaelrulesify
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jan 16, 2016 9:48 AM in response to Michaelrulesify

    I figured it out. I added the artist name to both Composer and Album Artist. I guess it's fixed Screen Shot 2016-01-16 at 12.43.17 PM.png

  • by turingtest2,

    turingtest2 turingtest2 Jan 16, 2016 9:52 AM in response to welshcatholic
    Level 10 (84,997 points)
    iTunes
    Jan 16, 2016 9:52 AM in response to welshcatholic

    Rather than keeping back one control track, which you might then have to fix later, try adding a trailing X (or ! ) to what should be the correct value, then remove it. The fact that you're making a change should make sure that all values merge together.

     

    tt2

  • by welshcatholic,

    welshcatholic welshcatholic Jan 16, 2016 12:46 PM in response to Michaelrulesify
    Level 2 (237 points)
    Jan 16, 2016 12:46 PM in response to Michaelrulesify

    You just need to sort out your album art now.. 

  • by ChooseWell,

    ChooseWell ChooseWell Jan 17, 2016 2:40 AM in response to Michaelrulesify
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 17, 2016 2:40 AM in response to Michaelrulesify

    Glad that helped you. It didn't work in my case...

  • by ChooseWell,

    ChooseWell ChooseWell Jan 17, 2016 2:42 AM in response to turingtest2
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 17, 2016 2:42 AM in response to turingtest2

    Adding a trailing X didn't help me either, and I tried it multiple times with all the fields that I could. The trailing X was added, then removed and *still* the tracks stayed separate!!

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