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User profile for user: interrobang
interrobang Author
User level: Level 1
4 points

Sort Artist, by Album, by Release Year | Audio Cutting Out | Custom Artwork Flushed | Etc., Etc.

Ahh so many things wrong with the “Music” app. ...


Let’s start:

It used to be that you could sort artists alphabetically and their albums by release year. You know, listening to an artists discography from their first album to their last, in order. That no longer appears to be a simple matter (not that it wasn’t confusing in iTunes, but in the upgrade to Ventura those sort prefs didn’t transfer).



One imagines this would be a most obvious sort order, and yet.


Furthermore, now “Various Artist” albums (compilations) have fragmented.



And don’t get me started on how custom album art has been auto-replaced with nothing, or worse, the “50 Shades of Grey” soundtrack art. Is that some kind of twisted joke?



Finally, I have the house/workshop wirelessly “wired for sound“ with Airport Expresses (Don’t get me started on those having been discontinued...).



Too often music cuts out on my desktop machine and can only be restarted is by deselecting “Office“ and reselecting it. Sometimes it corrects the issue, sometimes not. When I‘m out in the workshop, having to come back into the house and up to my office to fix this issue is unacceptable.


So, what’s up with iTunes, er “Music”?

Please fix it.

I have 19,638 items, 94.7 days, 201.71 GB of music...


Please. Fix it.

iMac 27″, macOS 13.1

Posted on Jan 31, 2023 7:37 AM

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User profile for user: turingtest2
turingtest2
User level: Level 10
274,352 points

Posted on Jan 31, 2023 12:14 PM

In the Songs view try clicking on the heading of the Album column until it reads Album by Artist/Year.




Not entirely sure why you should get random artwork in some cases, unless perhaps you're not ensuring that each distinct album has its own combination of album title and album artist. Perhaps select your own empty artwork placeholder to paste into every album that doesn't have artwork of its own that you've tracked down.




For split albums read on...


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:

  • For an album; Album, Album Artist, and Artist (if artist is the same for all tracks) *
  • For an artist; Album Artist (and Artist unless there are guest/featured artists listed which should not be changed)

Apply the change which merges things together, then remove the excess characters. Occasionally it may help to close and reopen the app 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 iTunes Match 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 iTunes wanted to keep separate start typing a value and let it autocomplete from say Var... to Various Artists. Picking from the autocomplete lists seemed to work when pasting/editing the whole value didn't.



tt2

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User profile for user: turingtest2
turingtest2
User level: Level 10
274,352 points

Jan 31, 2023 12:14 PM in response to interrobang

In the Songs view try clicking on the heading of the Album column until it reads Album by Artist/Year.




Not entirely sure why you should get random artwork in some cases, unless perhaps you're not ensuring that each distinct album has its own combination of album title and album artist. Perhaps select your own empty artwork placeholder to paste into every album that doesn't have artwork of its own that you've tracked down.




For split albums read on...


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:

  • For an album; Album, Album Artist, and Artist (if artist is the same for all tracks) *
  • For an artist; Album Artist (and Artist unless there are guest/featured artists listed which should not be changed)

Apply the change which merges things together, then remove the excess characters. Occasionally it may help to close and reopen the app 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 iTunes Match 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 iTunes wanted to keep separate start typing a value and let it autocomplete from say Var... to Various Artists. Picking from the autocomplete lists seemed to work when pasting/editing the whole value didn't.



tt2

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Sort Artist, by Album, by Release Year | Audio Cutting Out | Custom Artwork Flushed | Etc., Etc.

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