Naming Discs in Box Set

Question

Naming Discs in Box Set

Hi! I have recently purchased the physical copy of this Bowie box set:

https://music.apple.com/us/album/who-can-i-be-now-1974-1976/1135943211

How do I import the discs and/or change their info so that they arrange themselves as shown in the iTunes Store?

When I (incorrectly, in my opinion) save them all with a common album name, the individual discs get labeled "Disc 1," "Disc 2," etc.

Ideally, I would like to maintain the original album/disc names and artwork, and have them sorted under the larger collection with the box set's artwork showing as above.

Any advise is appreciated. I am comfortable with editing XML, but would rather manage this within the app. Thanks!

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.14

Posted on Jan 1, 2020 1:54 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

turingtest2

Level 10

273,149 points

Jan 3, 2020 3:29 AM in response to Brandon Whitesell

iTunes, or Music in Catalina, isn't capable of presenting a box set in this fashion in your library. You can get something close if you play around with the Work & Movement features, copying the Name of each track to the Movement Name, and setting the Work to the name of the album in the Box set. Here is a before and after with Light & Shade by Mike Oldfield as two discs or two works.

The alternative approach, which I prefer, is to deconstruct the box set. For example I've taken the 3 disc Remains Of Tom Lehrer and reconstructed his 5 original albums, with their respective artwork, leaving the remaining bonus tracks under the box set cover.

tt2

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Answer 2

Jan 4, 2020 9:38 AM in response to turingtest2

Thanks @turingtest2!

I see the appeal of both solutions.

When you use the first option—work and movement—how does that affect your searching using the Search feature in the control bar (top right in iTunes)?

It's interesting to me that this turns into a theoretical discussion in my head. Maybe I should have studied library sciences. 😜

-b

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Answer 3

turingtest2

Level 10

273,149 points

Jan 4, 2020 10:18 AM in response to Brandon Whitesell

Since you're still using iTunes, and not the crippled thing that is Music in Catalina, tap the magnifying glass in the search box and make sure that Search Entire Library is not ticked, and that All is ticked. Enable columns that you wish to be searchable in the Songs view of the library. A few are always included whether visible or not, but if you get unexpected results that is where you might need to enable more columns.

tt2

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Naming Discs in Box Set

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