Stopping compilations

How can I stop iTunes splitting up an album by artist? In fact, how can I stop "Compilations" altogether. I want everything to be grouped by album, regardless of artist on each track.

Dell Notebook, Other OS, Vista Ultimate

Posted on Dec 20, 2007 12:57 PM

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12 replies

Dec 20, 2007 1:26 PM in response to dougrham

Sorry, I'm a bit confused because what you are asking seems contradictory. It doesn't sound like you want to stop compilations -- instead, you want them!

If you let iTunes organize your music and you mark an album as a compilation, iTunes stores all the music in one folder based on the Album name, regardless of the artist. To make all the tracks of an album as a compilation, you need to select all the tracks (if may help to sort by album name), then right-click and select "Get Info". Make sure the pulldown for "part of a compilation" is "yes", and click OK.

If you have a compilation album with a bunch of different artists, but you do not mark it as a compilation, iTunes will store each song separately in each artist/album folder.

HTH,
Rob

Dec 22, 2007 2:15 AM in response to dougrham

You can get them together. If you do not want compilation turned on then there are two options. Edit artist tags so there is only one artist listed or set album artist to be the main artist of album.

I have some set as compilations, usually discs that truly are compilations. I have also edited tags to remove extra artist information. Other times I just use the album artist option.

Dec 29, 2007 4:55 AM in response to dougrham

I have the same problem and none of the answers above work. If you use "MusicBrainz Picard" to arrange the track information iTunes then picks the compilation CD as one album, as it should. Once iTunes gets a hold of the music it then splits it down to individual tracks. I have tried highlighting all tracks and pressing compilation "yes" but this makes no difference because it needs one album artist. This is not right and other software like Winamp handles this with no problems. Can someone please let us know the answer to this question as I don't think Apple will have overlooked this issue.

Jan 1, 2008 6:55 PM in response to camoracer

I was just looking for a couple of CD's I ripped under "artists", and I couldn't find them; turns out they were filed under "compilations". These weren't compilations though(ex. Wilco's live album, and Bob Dylan). Why are they being listed as compilations and how can I stop this. Is there a way to default set the Compilations tab at No? I just realized this and now I have to go through over a 100 CD and change them all. Can anyone help?

Jan 18, 2008 7:46 AM in response to timebuyer

As mentioned above, you CAN avoid the Compilations flag from being set. You just have to remember to check what Gracenote is feeding iTunes BEFORE you rip the CD.

When you pop the CD in your computer and iTunes retrieves the track info from Gracenote, select all tracks and select "Get Info" to check the Compilations setting, as well as genre, etc. because those are often wrong too. Once you correct the track info, I think under the iTunes Tools menu you can submit the track info back to Gracenote for correction (though I don't know how effective that is).

After you've made the corrections, then rip. Of course, you can make the corrections after you rip but it is easy to forget to do that.

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Stopping compilations

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