You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
I have the issue of albums splitting and multiple artists even though all meta data is identical. I have fixed the problem, (back to one artist or albums back together) only to find the same problem re-occuring. It is getting very frustrating. Surely, there must be a fix that stays fixed? Any support would be appreciated.
If iTunes or Music show multiple instances of an artist or an album then what generally works is to select all related tracks and use Song Info to add say a trailing X to each of the fields that the tracks should have in common:
Apply the change which merges things together, then remove the excess characters. Occasionally it may help to close and reopen the application between the two renaming operations. Part of a compilation should also be set consistently.
* If tracks are to be synced to a non-iOS device there should be a common Artist and/or the album should be set as a Compilation.
Use the songs view and display the fields Album, Sort Album, Album Artist, Sort Album Artist, Artist and Sort Artist side by side so you see whether or not it is appropriate to edit Artist and if sort values could be causing any further problems. See Grouping tracks into albums for more help if required.
One further tip for really stubborn duplicates. At one point I had three lots of Various Artists in the artists view of my library that wouldn't respond to the usual trailing X treatment. What I found worked was to add the trailing X to start with, but then with each group that the application wanted to keep separate start typing a value and use the autocomplete from say Var... to Various Artists. Picking from the autocomplete lists seemed to work when pasting/editing the whole value didn't.
tt2
The solution given worked for most artists - however I still have a few issues that I can't fix. eg: Ellie Goulding - Why will these 3 tracks not merge with the rest of the album. In artist view there is one artist (Goulding) but in that view the albums are split. Album is also split in album view.
This hint might help:
Occasionally it may help to close and reopen the application between the two renaming operations.
You might also try holding down option+cmd when launching iTunes/Music to open in its safe mode, which might tidy up some internal lists.
tt2
I am re-organising library so that artist names are correct and then I am adding a sort artist name to make them alphabetical. eg: The Darkness - artist name and sort artist Darkness. I am not using album artist because then the artist would be displayed as Darkness, which defeats the purpose. The problem of splitting artists occurs in artist view and not usually in album view. However, some songs from albums keep splitting - Nick Cave Murder ballads - song 4 Lovely Creature appears as a separate album. After correcting artist names (as above) - last night with no problems - this morning I have 15 split artists - 5 of these are re-occuring and 10 new issues. I am using Music 1.0.6.10 if that helps. I am getting to the point of dumping iTunes for a more reliable music player and library.
In the case of The Darkness you should enter the Artist and Album Artist as The Darkness and let the auto sort function sort as Darkness. If you want Nick Cave to sort under C rather than N you enter Artist and Album Artist as Nick Cave and Sort Artist and Sort Album Artist as Cave, Nick. If you have iTunes Store purchases that misbehave hide them from your purchase history so your version of the metadata doesn't get updated with values from the store.
tt2
Try the trailing X trick with Sort Album Artist. I would clear the Sort Artist field at the same time for the whole album, then go back and set Sort Artist consistently track by track so that for any given value of Artist in your library you always either leave blank or use the same value for Sort Artist. I.e. do not give different values of Artist the same value for Sort Artist.
In your example track 13 could have the sort artist as Harris, Calvin Feat. Goulding, Ellie. I would lean to <Album Artist> Feat. <Guest> even if the album credit puts it the other way around, but then I have multiple preferences like that, e.g. it is always Feat., never feat. or Ft.
tt2
I ticked the album by various artists and it came back together. So hopefully that will hold. Album appears under Ellie Goulding in album view and one artist Ellie Goulding.
Unfortunately, I have new splits - Ben Folds x 2, Lana Del Ray x 2 and Ben Harper x 2. In the case of Folds/Harper - some albums have more than one artist eg: Ben Folds Five & Ben Folds or Ben Harper & Ben Harper and the innocent Criminals. I followed the advice artist BH, album artist BH and then sort Harper Ben. Where the artist was BH & Innocent criminals I did the same album artist BH and sort Harper Ben. should I try ticking various artists?
When I kept all my music on my iPod classic I would always make Artist consistent across an album, moving any details about featured artist or alternate band names into the track title. E.g. <Title> [As Ben Folds Five] if I was treating Ben Folds as the Artist/Album Artist. In principle if you're only using iTunes/Music/iOS devices then you can have different values for Artist but Album Artist should be consistent. I only use the Part of a compilation option when every track has a different artist and the Album Artist is more properly Various Artists.
Another of my rules, information about a track or album goes in square brackets so you know it isn't a parenthetical part of the title.
tt2
I got as far as 'J'. Every time I go in there are more problems. It is a mess. This Music 1.0.6.10 version of iTunes is the worst iTunes I have ever experienced. I appreciate your help but the bottom line is that this software is rubbish. There are no conceivable reasons why albums and/or artists are splitting - the meta data is identical. What really should be happening is Apple providing updates that fix this frustrating problem. I have spent hours trying to fix this problem that I can never get back.
I will give this a try - thanks
The split seems to occur using the artist tab. Using the album tab - the album is together
I have tried renaming artist and album and it does work BUT the next time I open iTunes the problem reappears. I will keep going with this solution if that is all there is - but very time consuming.
You're welcome. 🙂
tt2
Itunes library organisation
