Multi-Album Compilation (with different artists and performances)

Hello Andrew White2,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities. Based on your post, you have 30 CD's that you'd like to consolidate in the Music app. We'll do our best to assist.

To make sure we're on the same page, are you trying to see all 30 CDs in one compilation or are these songs not showing under the same album?

If it's helpful, try out the section on, 'Tips for using song and CD information to organize your music' here: Change song and CD information in Music on Mac

Let us know if it helps out, take care!

Hello Andrew,

If all 30 CDs don't show up together in any view of your library, then there isn't currently a way to group them together. With that said, this is good feedback to provide Apple, so we'd suggest providing that here: Product Feedback

We know it's not the answer you were hoping to receive, but know it's the best way to let Apple know it would be beneficial to users.

Wishing you the best, cheers.

Neither iTunes nor Music really deals well with box sets, although funnily enough they are supported in the iTunes Store. If you're determined you could make use of the slightly unloved Work & Movement features. Here is Mike Oldfield's album Light & Shade which is presented as if it is a box set of two works, one called Light and one called Shade.

Originally the Work, Movement # and Movement Name columns were empty, but I've filled them in so I can show what happens when Work & Movement is enabled and there is relevant data in place.

And it looks like this in the albums view. Two discs with name of each part in square brackets in the first track:

Now I select the whole album and tick Use work and movement to change the way the album is displayed:

In the Songs view you can see the Name column is now displayed differently:

And in Albums it now looks like this:

It isn't clear here, but the By line can show more information if artist and/or composer are different from album artist.

If you prepare all of the information in work and movement correctly, along with suitable disc X of Y values, you could give all 30 CDs a common album title and album artist so they appear under one cover, then use the work and movement features so that each individual work is displayed within the larger album. I assume that the underlying order is still affected by disc and track numbers though I haven't dived into it in detail.

I tweaked the metadata for 18 tracks by hand here and it was marginally frustrating, copying and pasting name into movement name and switching between Song and Work one track at a time. 30 CDs worth might get you down. See https://dougscripts.com/itunes/2016/08/a-couple-of-work-and-movement-scripts/ for some scripts that might ease the pain.

BTW if you've not yet discovered it View > Show Filter Field in Music adds a new search box that should make it easier for you to locate a specific work within the larger collection.

Before embarking on any significant change to metadata it is best to backup your library. Should you make an error or be unhappy with the results you can restore the database and the affected files from their backups to return to the previous state.

tt2

Hi

After you updated the metadata to include work and movement have you had syncing issues? I have noted that songs with W&M are resynced to the device (in my case the iPhone) each time I sync the phone. Other songs don't suffer from this problem.

Ah, yes. I'd forgotten that issue, and wasn't entirely certain if it happens when all the details have been completed and you've actively selected to use work & movement. In some cases people have work values that have been inherited from grouping but they're not actively using the feature, so easy enough to get them to clear out the Work column. I'm using Apple Music so don't have to sync at the moment. I guess you will have to choose the lesser of the two evils.

tt2

It doesn't matter how many details have been filled. Even if you fill in the details and uncheck the use work and movement option in Info, the library is resynced every time. I was on a three hour call with apple support and they finally admitted that it is a "Feature" of the app. They have promised to escalate it.

I looked at the phone this time and noted that all the songs with work and movement are literally recopied. This is nuts and makes no sense.

Oh I quite agree. Apologies for my oversight.

tt2