"Part of a compilation" NOT WORKING

Follow up: I just found out that if I do a search for "Now That's What I Call", the results that come up are correctly displayed on screen (All chapters are in fact under the Compilation section where they should be) Proof that it's just the regular album view that has the glitch. I now feel like there is no workaround since it totally looks like an Apple problem... 😟

Many of the responses here seem to be straight from the iTunes "manual", and yes, they are correct, but I think you're problem may be the same as mine. I am following all the Various Artists and checkbox instructions and all that good stuff, and only about half of my library adheres to those rules. This seems to be a glitch in the software. I have checked the songs in other tag editing programs, I have deleted and re-added them to the library, I have turned every leaf over to no avail. This isn't like a "my monitor's not working = well, did you plug it in?" issue. I've followed all of the steps. I have selected 20 chapters of one compilation series all at once and changed the rules via the "edit multiple items" way, only to watch less than half of them move into the compilations area of the grid when I hit OK. I've tried to change the sort options up top to possibly "refresh" the view. I've tried to change everything back to "not a compilation" status. Same issue, only this time, around half of them did NOT listen to that command and stayed in the compilation section, even when I go into the options and verify that the compilations box is UNCHECKED now. 'Now That's What I Call Music' has over 60 volumes. They're scattered all over my albums view. Someone please please fix this, or let me know the workaround! Thx

Select the songs that are part of the compilation. Right mouse click, Click on get info.

Select the OPTIONS tab, Third up from the bottom is the Part of a Compilation optio of yes and no. Click Yes and OK and then Itunes will treat it as one album under the artist of compilations in your song library

Apologies you did not say what you had tried. The above worked for me when I imported compilation cds into my Library.

However I would check your other metadata for these songs/Albums such as sorting etc as iTunes can behave very strangely

Yes, I too have this issue, works about 7 out of 10 times. If it is a metadata issue, it does not appear to be in the metadata that is displayed under the 'Multible Item Information' box.

When it doesn't work the normal way...

The solution that has worked for me so far, but you need to be carful, is to select all songs in the comp, then open the 'Multible Information Box', and under Album Artist - not under Artist !!! - type in 'Various Artists' (no asterix obviously) and click OK.

It is important not to put any new information in the Artist box as if you do you will loose all the artist information on the compilation! and you can not Undo that - so I have found out 😟 and there is no preview, so you are flying blind with this.

Good Luck!

I have many albums with only one song, that I purchased from iTunes, not a big problem, but these albums do not show up in compilations in the album view. Yes, I have selected 'Various Artist" and "Album is a compilation of songs". Other albums with more than one song are sorted as compilation in the album view.

turnerhj wrote:

I have many albums with only one song, that I purchased from iTunes, not a big problem, but these albums do not show up in compilations in the album view. Yes, I have selected 'Various Artist" and "Album is a compilation of songs". Other albums with more than one song are sorted as compilation in the album view.

The songs all need the same album name.

A compilation is a of group of songs, usually by different artists or a "Best of" on an album.

If you have single songs from different albums, they are just single songs from different albums.

If you want to group them together in iTunes, you have to change the Album name and the Album Artist for all these songs to the same name and mark it as a compilation.

I guess that was not clear. They are different albums that I purchased one song from iTunes Store. What I am frustrated by, is that in the album view of iTunes some of the albums at are by various artist, such as Best of albums are grouped in a compilations section. There are about 25 albums that have only one song from Best of or any other various artist album. These albums do not get grouped in the compilations section of the albums view. i have selected compilations in the album get info and various artist is also selected. Must be an iTunes glitch, that an album with only one song does not count.

Here's what I think is the issue...and hopefully how to solve it...

In "Get Info", the "Artist" data field is applied at song level - so the artist(s) for the particular song. The "Album Artist" is normally the artist that the album as a whole is attributed to. In iTunes if you import (or create) a Compilation album then the "Artist" field at Album level should show by default as "Mixed" and is in gery text. Don't change this.

If you import a Compilation album from CD or download from Amazon or elsewhere, then the metadata field that equates to "Album Artist" often states "Various Artists", and is imported into iTunes so that the Album Artist field now shows "Various Artists" (and those creating their own Compilations may write Various Artists into the "Album Artist" field in iTunes). This confuses iTunes because it now thinks that there's an artist called "Various Artists", but when you tick the box to flag the album as a Compilation, it actually shows up in "Albums View" against the artist "Various Artists" because if there's an Album Artist name then it can't be a Compilation!

Simple solution - if you have a compilation album, delete Various Artists from the "Album Artist" field, tick the "Compilation" box and it'll appear under the Compilations section at the end of the Albums view in iTunes and (bizarrely) under the Album Title it'll show "Various Artists". If it doesn't, make sure the Artist field shows "mixed", and if not, delete the album from the iTuned library (don't delete the files though) and then re-import it. This should get it back to showing "Mixed", repeat the process and all should be good.

For best results every album should have the Album Artist field completed. Older Apple devices use part of a compilation to link tracks from an album where there are different artists on some tracks, newer devices use Album Artist. Set both appropriately. If you have an older device then for an album with guest or featured artists, but an obvious album artist, it can pay to put the additional artist information into the track name and set the artist to the same value for each track, rather than using the compilation flag. The Gracenotes CDDB database often sets the compilation flag on an anthology by a single album artist, when it is best left unset.

tt2

Hi I have same problem. changing part of compilation to yes does nothing.

Any fixes?

Perfecr Roly it worked for me now thanks

I guess that was not clear. They are different albums that I purchased one song from iTunes Store.