Duplicate songs.... What do you do?

The work around is that you can manually order any playlist to play in your designated order by dragging. I do this with playlists which I want to have a certain pace at specific intervals - - most commonly my workout playlists.

It is interesting to see the different approaches people's brains or relationship to their music takes though. Unless I have constructed a playlist for a specific purpose, I am most delighted to discover music through the accidental juxtaposition in terms of not knowing what will be next on the ipod -- especially since I have the ability to move immediately onto the next track on a playlist if the one that pops up isn't satisfactory for whatever reason.

I am still not understanding why anything contained in a compilation is of any artistic significance though as generally it is a completely arbitrary grouping determined by someone in a record company's licensing or special markets division. Sometimes a group might be consulted in terms of a Greatest Hits or the like -- but why do you care?

This is asked in genuine curiosity 🙂 as I am can be obsessive in terms of my collections so I am wondering why anything after the original release in terms of tracking order would be of interest -- again, one can note that it is Track X of Y album in comments if the data is of significance.

In terms of artwork, there is the ability to have a few pieces of artwork although only one can be displayed. Again, I don't have any particular interest in most artwork other than the original issue since the later artwork tends to not reflect the original authentic vision of the artist -- and of course (and not really being iTunes/digital specific), album artwork for CD's is generally of less artistic significance than when the "canvas" was the larger cover -- or even gatefold albums of the vinyl era.

I might get into a band through a "Best of" and subsequently buy other albums. I don't see the point in "throwing away" one or two duplicates that might arise through the second purchase. While it might be possible to implement all sorts of schemes to allow the one track to be used for both albums to save a bit of space there could still be issues with relative volumes or poor transitions between tracks. If I discover that nearly all the "Best of" consists of dupes I might choose to retire all but the unique tracks although I might wait until the whole album would be redundant. Likewise I don't see the point in filleting out the odd track from a Various Artists compilation just because I also have it on the original album. If space is the issue it's time for a bigger drive - a bit of "rationalisation" will be a temporary cure at best.

tt2

PS Picking up on the "original release" concept I did feel the need to convert my 3-CD "The Remains of Tom Lehrer" box set into it's 5 constituent original albums and a "Remains of the Remains..." album of the bonus material.

PPS I also like browsing my collection via the art - even a relatively lo-res image is enough to trigger recognition and allows me to scan trhough albums much faster than I could if I were trying to read the text.

Helen Berman wrote:

I am still not understanding why anything contained in a compilation is of any artistic significance though as generally it is a completely arbitrary grouping determined by someone in a record company's licensing or special markets division. Sometimes a group might be consulted in terms of a Greatest Hits or the like -- but why do you care?

I understand your point of view and agree to certain extent. When I rip compilations to the library I omit any tracks I have elsewhere - usually on the original album. However some compilations have sentimental value - perhaps that which introduced you to the artist and that track order is what you enjoy.... occasionally. Other compilations come with edited versions of familiar tracks, single versions, extended versions, different mixes, alternate takes etc. - the list is almost endless. These variations of course can be imported but omitting the duplicate tracks leaves you with a "half" album. I get around this now be recreating the entire compilation album as a playlist drawing in the duplicates from the original albums and retaining the unique tracks. All I lack now is the ability to apply the appropriate artwork to that playlist/album...

As you yourself have experienced playlists can be a fun way of re-experiencing familiar tunes. I've copied some albums as playlists and rearranged the song order and it's surprising what a difference it can make to the albums impact... even if it's not what the artist intended.

I did have a brief play this afternoon with using comments, then creating a smart playlist from those tracks, to 're create the album' but I DO like to have them played in order the original artist album had produced them. Cant immediately see a way to do that.

iTunes menu View -> Show browser.
Click the Album column header a few times till it shows *Album by Year*
Select the Artist you want and only that Artists albums will be shown in year order.
Click the first one and press Play.

When I first make a copy of an album, I copy the entire album to a hard drive that is not my main HD. This is a back-up in the original format. I do this with ALL my original albums.

Any duplicates that appear in my iTunes can be deleted - or not.

Different albums by the same artist may result in the same song appearing in iTunes multiple times. Some are LIVE versions as opposed to studio versions. Some titles are duplicated when they are recorded by different artists (covers, etc.).

However some compilations have sentimental value - perhaps that which introduced you to the artist and that track order is what you enjoy.... occasionally.

I have exactly that feeling towards certain early 'budget sampler' LP's I bought on vinyl (the Rock Machine series on CBS for example). I have found a way to accommodate these WITHOUT having duplicates though : I create a named playlist for that specific sampler and drag each track from my Library into it, where they can be re-sequenced into original vinyl order. Some of those tracks are indeed only from that sampler, while others are from the full album it came from - so if I've acquired that album I delete the sampler version. Result ? The full sampler (playlist) AND the full artist albums where they exist ... and no duplicates!