Music not listing Artists alphabetically

Question

Level 1

4 points

Music not listing Artists alphabetically

I recently called apple support regarding this issue. Basically I have been migrating my Muic Library from my old MacBook Air to my new MacBook Pro. Unfortunately when importing the library artists not listed alphabetically properly.

Example a song from Drake or another artist will be out of order. While with support we checked the file (artist) and everything checks out.

Furthermore if you go to finder to where the “Music” program files said files it properly sorts according to name alphabetically.

As a music lover and DJ have random artist and song not properly sorted is extremely annoying. Not to mention I have another 30,000 songs to transfer and trying to look for each artist (hundreds) music is not something I should have to do on a brand new 4000 computer.

I am not deleting files and then re installing them because as I mentioned the finder keeps them properly alphabetical. The issue is the user interface not listing it in proper alphabetical order.

Please help and fix this issue!!!!

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.13

Posted on Feb 24, 2022 7:49 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

turingtest2

Level 10

274,476 points

Feb 27, 2022 5:20 AM in response to Murko74

The little chevron pointing downwards indicates you have a reversed sort going on, Z>A. By default iTunes ignores leading articles (a/an/the) when sorting, which is why you see that particular order, Tribe>Sven>Sunny. I would recommend sorting on the Album column, then clicking the heading again so it reads Album by Artist, with the chevron pointing upwards. This will show the artists in order, then within that list their albums, in track order. Enable the Sort Album Artist and Sort Artist columns. Sort order for artists is controlled by the first non-empty value from Sort Album Artist, Album Artist, Sort Artist, Artist, ignoring the complication of compilations for now.

tt2

Reply

Answer 2

Murko74 Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 27, 2022 3:40 AM in response to turingtest2

Thanks TT2 for the response.

I thought I would clarify slightly. When I go view my music library I typically view it as Songs Tab. There you can sort the content by “Song Title” or “Artist” or “Album”. I just find it easier to look for an artist then find the song I want. Typing in. The artist name or first few letters works perfectly but as stated some artist are out of order. See photos:

There doesn’t seem to be any Rhyme or Reason as to why these artist are out of order.

As you can see the Music Library file where files go alphabetically lists the artists properly.

Really hoping somebody from apple addresses this mess.

Reply

Answer 3

Murko74 Author

Level 1

4 points

Feb 27, 2022 5:24 PM in response to turingtest2

Thanks again for your responses and recommendations but neither fixes the core issue of the Artists being out of order in the songs section. I have played with the arrow button up and down and also opening up the sorting function and playing around, nothing works. Something is wrong at the root programme. As mentioned the Music Folder doesn’t have an issue sorting this artists properly.

Again, if somebody directly from the Music team could please reach out and address this issue I would be great full.

Reply

Answer 4

turingtest2

Level 10

274,476 points

Feb 27, 2022 5:49 PM in response to Murko74

This is a user to user support forum. Apple have a team that may respond to unanswered questions with scripted links to support articles, but you're not going to get the attention of anyone actively involved in working on the code of this application.

Again, your screenshots show an inverted sort with autosort values taken into account. Look at the unique values in sequence:

A Tribe Called Quest

Sven Vath

A Sunny Day In Glasgow

Star B, Mark Broom, Riva Star

A Sagittariun

Rene Wise

Ramiro Lopez, Spartaque, Lady Vale

Post Malone

Planetary Assault Systems

A Place to Bury Strangers

Click the chevron to sort A-Z rather than Z-A. The leading As are ignored for sort purposes. The bold words are the most relevant in determining sort order. If, for example. you want A Tribe Called Quest to sort under A instead of T you have to manually enter A Tribe Called Quest into sort artist and sort album artist. If you enable the sort artist and sort album artist columns in the Songs view as I suggested you will see greyed out autosort values for artists such as A Sagittariun (it will be just Sagittariun) and it should become obvious why the list is sorted exactly the way that it is. Editing the sort album and sort album artist value for a particular artist can give you control, e.g. you can decide if The Beatles sort under B (the default) or T (if you edit the sort fields).

tt2

Reply