When is a compilation not a compilation?

See http://www.samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/grouping.asp

tt2

pushprogress wrote:
Thanks, definitely a step up from the instructions that come with the iPod. I especially liked the part that said, "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 then set Part of a compilation to No," and *then didn't explain how* or when to do it. Runner up was the screen shot of a window with the appropriate box circled in red, but with no instructions on how to get to that window.

Fair point, although I'm kind of assuming that by the time you get to worrying about that finer details of organising your library you've become familiar with the basic editing features provided by iTunes. When is up to you. I apply the various workarounds consistently each time I add new music into my library but others might only bother to fix up an album if & when it starts to create multiple covers. E.g. the problem of featured artists trigging multiple covers on the iPod may not occur until you have two albums by the same album artist.

I poked around some more in iTunes, and I think I figured out how to do it:

1. Use the search and scrolling functions to display all tracks of one of the problem CDs on the screen.
2. Highlight all tracks.
3. Hit "Control I."
4. Input appropriate name in "album artist" column.
5. Hit the "Options" tab.
6. Select "no" next to the line that says, "Part of a Compilation."

Yep, that's it....

Still two questions:

First, is there an easier way?

No. Although if you've more than one album to correct by the same album artist you should be able to select & correct all the tracks in one hit instead of two or three.

Second, what do I do about CDs that ARE compilations, but are not showing up in the appropriate genres on my iPod? Change the info to tell iTunes that the CD is not a compilation, I guess?

As I say, if it is a compilation then include a sensible value for Album Artist such as *Various Artists*, *Original Cast* and set *Part of a compilation* to Yes, i.e. tell iTunes that it is a compilation.

Not quite sure what you mean about "showing up in appropriate genres". Each track has only one value for Genre. "Rock", "Pop" and "Rock/Pop" are three distinct values in the iTunes universe and each track will only be listed under one genre, unlike other systems which might include all tracks marked as "Rock/Pop" when viewing either "Rock" or "Pop".

tt2

Weird, I can't say I use Genre for accessing music very often but it clearly ought not to work that way. Although, as experience attests, the inconsistencies between the way iTunes & iPod treat the same data abound. Then again, I don't have a Genre called Compilations and I can't see why one should have one, let alone have it swallow things clearly marked as Pop or Reggaae. The only mechanism that I can think of that might cause the effect is one that, by strange coincidence, I've just commented on in this thread regarding multiple tags.

tt2