can ipod classic sort album or cover-flow by album artist

Yes.

In Cover Flow view, albums are sorted by the Artist's name, then album title. Compilation albums have an Album Artist of Various Artists and are listed at the end of the Cover Flow list, after albums by artists with numbers.

So the order will be:

1. ZZ Top
2. 23 Skidoo
3. Various Artists - (then albums are listed in alphabetical order)

In the Albums view, all albums are listed in alphabetical order, regardless of the artist.

TG1926 wrote:

i found it hard to find songs in my ipod classic 160gb.

Don't forget the Songs view. Every song is listed, alphabetically and with the artist for that song listed under the title. Also, there is a Search facility on the iPod Classic. The more letters are typed into the search box, the shorter the results list. One problem though, you cannot type numbers into the search box!

Note that an iPod classic uses only Artist and Sort Artist for grouping/ordering content, not Album Artist. See Grouping tracks into albums for more details.

tt2

Yes: "One album, too many covers" section in http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/grouping.asp this explains the issues clearly.

🙂

tt2