Albums in Apple Music

How do I make it to where Apple Music shows an actual album in my library?


An explanation as to how it works currently.


If for instance I have an album titled Best Of the 80's with 20 songs and 20 artists I will have 20 Best Of the 80's albums with one song each.


What I want is ONE album titled Best Of the 80's with 20 songs in it.


Here's an example of how it currently is.



I should have only one album showing titled Album with those 10 songs in it.


I normally don't play anything from my library because of that issue as it's very hard to find songs.


Now albums with just one artist do display all the songs in one album.

Windows

Posted on Jan 14, 2024 9:39 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jan 15, 2024 1:07 AM

It seems that you are omitting either a common album artist, e.g. Various Artists, or the part of a compilation flag, or both. I would recommend both for this type of album as that should give the best results regardless of other settings in Music.



If you make both changes and the album still doesn't collapse into one cover then 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

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 15, 2024 1:07 AM in response to Jmcinvale

It seems that you are omitting either a common album artist, e.g. Various Artists, or the part of a compilation flag, or both. I would recommend both for this type of album as that should give the best results regardless of other settings in Music.



If you make both changes and the album still doesn't collapse into one cover then 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

Jan 15, 2024 10:20 AM in response to Jmcinvale

Now in the old version of iTunes (maybe 10 years ago at least) everything displayed properly.


I seem to remember downloading my library to a pc from my iPod classic onto a different pc than the one I originally put the music on before I had Apple Music.


I cannot remember if things displayed properly then or if I only noticed the issue after getting Apple Music.


The only thing I can figure is when I downloaded my library from my iPod, maybe something didn't translate right causing the issue I now have.

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Albums in Apple Music

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.