Albums with same name merged. Not proper behavior!!!

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Level 1

8 points

Albums with same name merged. Not proper behavior!!!

Maybe someone can suggest a solution to this problem. I have a few albums with the same name "Greatest Hits" by different artists. I use the ID3 tag field "Album Artist" to distinguish the albums and iTunes DOES recognize that these are separate albums (I can check this by sorting Album by Artist). However, once transfered to the iPhone, the albums are MERGED in all menus and Coverflow.

I know you can add a space after the album name to distinguish them further, but that is very annoying, considering I have 7 different albums with the same "Greatest Hits" name. Is one of the names supposed to have 7 spaces after it?!?!?

As far as I have heard, older generation iPods have always handled this properly, as long as "Album Artist" field was filled. Then why can't Apple's most advanced iPod ever replicate a proper simple behavior.

Can someone suggest a solution to this (other than placing spaces after album name)? Or simply confirm that this is some sort of bug that can't be fixed?

Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Jul 8, 2007 5:13 PM

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Answer 1

Dr Mike

Level 1

119 points

Jul 8, 2007 5:59 PM in response to PJMax15

I've run into the same problem. Albums with the same name (Best of/Greatest Hits/etc) sort correctly in iTunes but not on the iPhone. (And I agree with you that something as clunky as adding spaces to the end of album names isn't a real solution for the "best iPod ever made.") I've seen somewhere that setting the "part of compilation" tag to "off" can help, but it didn't work for me on the phone.

Hopefully iPhone software 1.1 will fix this.

17 PowerBook (Rev A) Mac OS X (10.4.10)

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Answer 2

PJMax15 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 8, 2007 9:52 PM in response to Dr Mike

The thing is, the "part of a compilation" checkmark is always off in my tags. It's an archaic method of combining different artists on one CD into one album (like a soundtrack).

That became unnecessary once "Album Artist" was added. Now you can type something like Various Artists in the "Album Artist" and the name of the artist on the track in "Artist". Once done, soundtracks combine nicely.

So basically, the iPhone is reading the "Album Artist" label one way (to combine multiple artists on an album), but not the other (separating albums with same names). I am starting to think that this is definitely a bug.

Does anyone have any other thoughts?

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Answer 3

PJMax15 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 9, 2007 3:05 AM in response to Nothing2Prove

Thanks. I'll try. It might be more practical than spaces.

However, I really hope Apple fixes this. The best iPod they have ever created should be able to do all the good things that the previous iPods could do. I think I am just more frustrated than anything. Thanks again for the suggestion.

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Answer 4

Aug 1, 2007 8:33 PM in response to PJMax15

i have tried to organize a soundtrack by typing in various artists in the "album artist" field. leaving artist as is for that specific album and "album" would be the movie name. on the iphone i still see each artist and no various artist listed anywhere under artists. if i go to album i see the name of the movie, and if i go to compilations i see it there too. anyway to get rid of each artists without removing it from the "artist" field and adding it to the song title?

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Answer 5

Aug 1, 2007 9:08 PM in response to PJMax15

I was just going to post a comment about this. How did Apple miss this? I was stumped that my Queen Greatest Hits didn't show up in Coverflow view but it would when listed by song. As it turns out all the songs were listed under Simon and Garfunkels Greatest Hits album (I know, I know, you can skip the sarcasm of my music choices) I was forced to change the name of the Album from "Greatest Hits" to "Queen: Greatest Hits", which isn't a huge deal but if I'm looking for that album I'd first look under Greatest Hits. It's easy enough to go back and look by artist, but yes it is annoying, especially since iTunes gets it right. Guess what that's what we get for version 1.00 (or I guess 1.01 now).

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Answer 6

Jul 9, 2007 1:17 AM in response to PJMax15

What I did to resolve this problem was title the album "Best of (artist)" and it works fine now.

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