IPod sets up artists weird

The Album Artist tag needs to be correctly filled in for every track on the album. That tag should have the name of the main artist in it and the compilation flag needs to be off (no tick [checkmark] in the box).

Look at the screenshot below of the Nelly Furtado album Loose, as shown in iTunes on a desktop. It's her album, and should be credited to her alone, but four of the tracks feature guest artists:

• the middle section of the screenshot shows the Details card for the album (select all the tracks and then choose from iTunes' top bar menu Edit/Get Info/Details)
• the parts of the image to the left and right of the card show the columns in the Songs view (other columns are hidden behind the card)
• to the left of the card is the artist column, showing all the tracks on the album. As you can see, that column shows a guest artist on some tracks. The arrow points to the same tag (the artist tag) on the Details tab and that displays the greyed out text Mixed because the contents of that tag includes more than one artist (this is correct)
• to the right of the card is the album artist column, which has only Nelly Furtado in it (again, this is correct). It is this tag which holds the album together. The arrow points to the album artist tag on the card
• the compilation tag must be off (not ticked [or not checked] ). As far as iTunes is concerned:
  • an album by one artist, but with guest artists (such as Loose, shown here), is not a compilation
  • an album with different artists for each track is a compilation and should have the compilation flag on - and it should also have the text Various Artists in the album artist box

Here's an example of a Various Artists album, although note the error:

As I was preparing these screenshots, I discovered an error with this album; the dash mark in the compilation tag (I've ringed it in the screenshot). Note that you should not think of the dash mark as a checkmark (because it isn't). The dash means that one or more of my selection does not have the compilation flag turned on. The fix (with all the tracks still selected) is to click on the compilation box, which will turn off the tick and leave the box empty, then click on that box again to turn on the compilation flag for everything in the selection. Then you will see what we in the UK call a tick (while others call it a checkmark):

Then click the OK button and the issue is fixed for that album.

If you use Sync to manage your devices, a Sync with the device will correct the issue on it as well. All your devices will now be consistent. If you use Manually Manage, then you will need to remove the affected songs form your device and then re-add them.