iPod sorting by Album Artist, not Artist...

I had to give up my trusty old iPod Classic (no longer supported in Catalina :( and am in the process of setting up a new iPod Touch. I synced/downloaded more than 8500 songs. I couldn't figure out why not all the artists were showing up in order and after poking around, I realized that many of the songs do not have an "Album Artist" listed in the Get Info data. Which means that the iPod is sorting them by Album Artist and not Artist. And many songs have "Soundtrack" or "Various Artists" listed as the Album Artist, so these out of whack too. Is there ANY way of sorting the music on the iPod by plain old Artist, rather than Album Artist? If not, I either have to search for particular songs or individually update more than 1500 Album Artists by hand. GAH. In iTunes (now Apple Music), I can easily sort by either of these categories. And iPod Classic always sorted by Artist. What gives? HELP! Thanks...