Compilation Artists Don't Show Up in 'Artists' - Fixable?

See if this makes anything clearer... http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/grouping.asp#section3

tt2

If, however, you simply want to make sure that you can see all your artists, including those who only appear on Compilations then, in iTunes, turn off the option to Group compilations in preferences (iTunes 8 & earlier) or turn off View > Column Browser > Group Compilations & View > Column Browser > Use Album Artists (iTunes 9 & later) and on an iPod Classic turn off Settings > Main Menu > Compilations & Settings > Music Menu > Compilations.

You'll still need to complete the Album Artist field to hold compilation & multiple guest albums together in iTunes, but the iPod Classic ignore that field so these will break up there if you choose to turn off the Compilations options. That will let you see all the individual artist combinations on the device. On an iOS device it works the other way, albums are grouped on Album Artist but the artists menu displays all Artists, not all Album Artists, which I personally find too cluttered. I'd like my compilation albums to show up under various artists rather than each get listed as 20 or so one-track entries.

tt2

iTunes and the various iPod firmwares are not consistent or logical with the treatment of track artist vs album artists or artists that appear on compilations. For some models of iPod, in some modes, the artist is only listed if there is at least one non-compilation track by that artist. I don't offhand recall the precise quirks for the Nano but it may well not be possible to get it to list everything the way you'd like.

tt2

rjbinney,

My suggestion in that case would be that when you add the track "That's When I Reach For My Revolver," you should immediately change the Album to "Signals, Calls, and Marches," and change the year to 1981.

The fact that the song also appears on some K-Tel collection is musicologically about as irrelevant as any fact could be.

As tt2 has well researched, you cannot count on iTunes/iPod to consistently handle any other approach.

I have the exact same problem- to be honest, I dont care what album the song was originally on- I just want it to show up in the compilation album and the artists

I had the same problem (I have an iPhone 4S, but I think the same procedure should work for you) -- I actually found this question of yours because I didn't have an answer myself. I discovered the solution, though:

In the "Info" settings for each song, specify that the song's "Album Artist" is the same as the song's "Artist".

That should solve it.

striker1246 wrote:

I have the exact same problem- to be honest, I dont care what album the song was originally on- I just want it to show up in the compilation album and the artists

The general solution was given earlier in the thread however under iOS 5 there is an additional feature under Settings > Music > Group By Album Artist. Deselecting this makes the device list all artists.

tt2

I had the same problem as wizardofodd. After trying countless combinations for hours here is what worked for me on my iPhone 4 iOS 5 in order to have a compilation album with several artists album displayed as ONE album under "Albums" while at the same time having ALL artists that feature on it in the "Artists" list.

The solution was a special setting in the music settings for the ipod/music app.

So with iTunes on your computer delete the messy compilation album from your iphone. In iTunes local library give all the songs of this compilation album the same album name and the same album artist name such as VA or various artists etc. The "part of a compilation"check box or the grouping field don't really matter in this case. You can do with them what you want the important thing is all the songs have the identical album and album artist name.

Now copy all revised songs back on the iphone.

Now close the ipod/music app (shut down the app completely)

Go to Settings -- Music -- and deactivate "Group by Album Artist" (off)

Close the settings.

Restart the ipod/music app.

Solved. All Artists in the Artists menu and only one Album icon in the Albums list.

In general, the important thing is that you always need to shut down all the apps and restart them so that new settings enter into force.

Thank you nightowl2012; I had this exact problem on my iPod touch, and this worked for me, cheers! 🙂

after surfing the web looking for a solutions to this as most of my albums are compilations, i have found my own way of solving this issue that is different and maybe easier than the above solution.

I used a 3rd party tagging software to copy the artist name of each song into the composer field. this was automated using the software however if you dont have too many songs then you could do it manually.

I then removed all the songs from itunes and readded them to update the tag in itunes.

Then once i synced the idevice i removed artist view from the ipod app and added composer view. this then allowed me to see every artist instead of just the album artist.

I know its long but once I had the hang of it, it was very easy to do.

I just spent the last two days trying to figure out how to do this! Thank you so much. Man, iTunes 11 really just isn't intuitive at ALL.

What makes this even sillier is you can't access the Column Browser in any view other than "Songs", which doesn't make any sense since the settings apparently affect every view. Oy that took way too much effort!

IslandGirlExpat wrote:

I just spent the last two days trying to figure out how to do this! Thank you so much. Man, iTunes 11 really just isn't intuitive at ALL.

You're welcome. 🙂

The main differences between iTunes 11 and earlier versions are the loss of coverflow and ability to have multiple windows open.

In Windows, you can restore much of the look & feel of iTunes 10.7 with these shortcuts:

• ALT to temporarily display the menu bar
• CTRL+B to show or hide the menu bar
• CTRL+S to show or hide the sidebar
• CTRL+/ to show or hide the status bar (won't hide for me on Win XP)
• Click the magnifying glass top right and untick Search Entire Library to restore the old search behaviour
• Use View > Hide <Media Kind> in the cloud or Edit > Preferences > Store and untick Show iTunes in the cloud purchases to hide the cloud items. The second method eliminates the cloud status column (and may let iTunes start up more quickly)
• If you don't like having different coloured background & text in the Album (Grid) view use Edit > Preferences > General and untick Use custom colours for open albums, movies, etc.
• With iTunes 11.0.3 and later you can enable artwork in the Songs view from View > Show View Options (CTRL+J) making it more like the old Album List view
• View > Show View Options (CTRL+J) also contains options to change the sorting of grid based views

What makes this even sillier is you can't access the Column Browser in any view other than "Songs", which doesn't make any sense since the settings apparently affect every view.

Indeed, most aggravating.

tt2

Thanks!

Yours is the best compromise next to restoring your iPod. I have many compilations and the 160 gig iPod cannot auto-defrag that much data movement at once, so you will crash a lot and loose speed. you'd think it would be a simple re-write of the iPod's TOCs, but nope. I will do a full iPod restore after my next full BU. Getting rid of the compilations setting would be nice.

I sure wish FiiO would get their hi-res F-5 player in better shape, so it plays graphics and other metadata (e.g., liner notes, mastering info, etc.). Playing PDFs would also be a BIG plus. I almost bought one when they came out -until i discovered that it would NOT play any of my pristine original album art collected over 10 years!

Hi-res is not something any human can really hear. But many FLAC is as good as PCM files. Apple loss-less is also as good. Frankly, when I manipulate an SPDIF digital stream from my iPod classic 160, and then convert it with a 24 bit converter with added anti-aliased bit depth to 24 bits (over sampling), some quiet, well recorded passages sounds better -particularly piano.

The iPod's greatest problem has always been the lack of current supplied to its analog section, thus resulting in poor bass performance. It uses clean chips -but they are robbed of current in favour of video that few people care about! If Apple released a "Ho-Fi" iPod, and kept the price REASONABLE (less than FiiO), they'd make some quick bucks.

PS: To get an SPDIF stream from your iPod Classic (the 80 gig is easier) you must buy a proprietary chip FROM APPLE -to decode the 128 bit Apple encryption -then you can use your favourite DAC and the sound will match CDs for anyone with ears over over 14 years old. --At least, on music other than quiet piano music. There is now a $100 device that will do this for you -WITH a remote! I'd get it if iIneeded it.