Cannot liberate songs from the "various artists" prison (iTunes 11)

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Cannot liberate songs from the "various artists" prison (iTunes 11)

I have several stubborn albums, and several stubborn individual song tracks, that I simply cannot yank out of the "various artists" section in Artist View. Ideally, I'd like there to be nothing under "various artists"; those songs would be viewable individually under the artists, or as albums under the "compliations" grouping.

I should clarify -- none of these albums or tracks are marked as "various artists" in the artist, sort artist, album, sort album, album artist, ANY of the fields. If I change the album artist field for the entire album, for instance, it might move the album up or down in the listing under "various artists" but it remains prisoner in the "various artists" section. It does not show up under "complations" and it does not show up under that particular artist's listing.

For example: I have the Brave soundtrack in my iTunes library. It features music from several different artists, and I would like it very much if the songs by Patrick Doyle showed up under Patrick Doyle, if the songs from Julie Fowlis showed up under Julie Fowlis, and so on. However, the whole thing is only visible under "Various Artists." Even when I change "album artist" to "Patrick Doyle", the album remains in "Various Artists" and does not show up with the rest of the Patrick Doyle albums I have. Clicking "compliation" to "yes" doesn't help either.

I'm frustrated and at my wit's end. I don't know if there's something hard-coded into these files I don't know how to get at, or if this is a bug, or if I'm just an idiot. Please help!

-- Matthew

P.S. Please don't tell me to just use the "song" view. I know I can do that; I'm trying to make the Artist View work for me, which, apart from this irritation, I'm enjoying quite a bit. I'd like to make it work 100%. Thanks!

1.8 GHz iMac Power PC G5, Mac OS X (10.5.4), 2 GB DDR SDRAM

Posted on Dec 3, 2012 7:18 PM

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Answer 1

Apr 14, 2013 2:36 PM in response to MRBowers

I found this posted from someone else for a slightly different problem, but it worked for me.

First, for any of your albums that have 'Various Artists' as the album artist, select them all, right click > Get Info. Under the Info tab, delete the info in Album Artist. Go to the Options tab and under 'Part of a Compilation' select 'Yes'. Click OK. (This could take a while to update...)
From the menu icon in the top left corner select 'Show Menu Bar'.
Make sure you're in the 'Artists' view in your library for this bit.
From the menu bar go to View > View Options.
In the pop-up box, choose Sort Albums by: Title, and untick 'Group Compilations'.

In the Albums view, any compilations will still be shown as one album, not 30 albums by 30 different artists, but the individual artists will now also show up under the Artist view. You should also now be able to search for these individual songs by title/artist.

Good luck!

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Answer 2

Mar 12, 2014 6:37 AM in response to MRBowers

similar to what lizfromak said, i found the way to manage soundtracks is this way:

Under "Get Info/Info"

1). make sure "Album Artist" is blank.

2). have the singers name in the "Artist" box

3). check the compile box.

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