How do I stop iTunes from splitting up albums?

You want Album Artist to be the same as the Artist that released the album, or Various Artists when applicable. iTunes gives preference to the value of Album Artist over Artist so I think your scheme would add to the confusion in your library. You only need to fix problem albums.

If you go into the songs view and enable the column browser, CTRL+SHIFT+B from memory, then you can select the first album, if there is more that one artist listed CTRL+A, CTRL+I opens a Get Info window with the tracks of the album, you type in the name of the Album Artist, press OK, then move on to the next album. Many are likely not to need any change so a second or two will suffice to see if there is an issue. If you use CTRL+J to enable view options and always show artwork then when there is only one common artist (or album artist) you will get a single piece of artwork, when there are more it will be clear. Watch out however for cases where the same album name has been used by different album artists (think Greatest Hits) as these need a little more care.

tt2

I do much the same for classical music. The composer is more significant than the artist. Over the years I've written a number of scripts for managing bulk changes which can be found at http://samsoft.org.uk/iTunes/scripts.asp.

With the possible exception of reviving the original metadata for purchases, which is a side effect of the way that iTunes handles your purchase history, iTunes doesn't normally change the details. What it may do is reveal data that has been changed by other software. See Getting iTunes & Windows Media Player to play nicely for a possible explanation.

tt2

I do not let iTunes manage my media folder but I would assume if there is no Album Artist it would then look at the Artist. I assume your iTunes library reflects this also. Do you show multiples of the same album in the Albums view?

I would assume that adding an Album Artist would prompt a resort of your folders. You can try. If it does not you can add Album Artists then create a new library as you mentioned.

Generally setting a common Album Artist will fix things.

For deeper problems see Grouping tracks into albums.

If both Keep... and Copy... are unchecked then tag changes won't be reflected in the physical folders.

If ripping media with iTunes you can set Album Artist before importing and your ripped tracks should end up in a sensible folder.

tt2

I'd still worry about PicardTagger making exactly the changes that I want. You may have trouble getting iTunes to notice any changes made externally. It doesn't automatically pick up on such changes, but it should reread the tag next time it plays each track. Or you can delete them all and add them back again.

tt2

I interpret this question as "STOP iTunes from splitting albums" not "fix albums split by iTunes". It never used to do this. I don't know when it started. A few years ago and it's just ridiculous that users should have to go into myriad albums and change album artist or artist or anything. This happens to albums purchased through the iTunes store, which makes the bug even more infuriating. This is the reason people more for Apple computers, to avoid this fiddling/utility B.S.

I'm usually level-headed about things, as Apple's tech support is generally good, but the number of iTunes inexcusable bugs is growing and this particular problem has been going on for several years.

If I buy an album on iTunes Store, it should NEVER get split in this manner. I'm sorry, but it's sloppy software design behavior.

Please fix this ASAP. It's super frustrating and should be embarrassing for a billion-dollar company.

Easier said than done. I have 17,455 tracks in my well organized library and I never use the Album Artist field as I think it is redundant entry the Artist field. When I first started using iTunes (a very long time ago), this was not a problem. Consequently, now every time a track plays, iTunes mysteriously adds some weird album artist which screws up my library. Periodically, after listening to my music, I go to Song Info and delete these crazy Album Artist entries, but they come back the next time I play that track. How can we stop this from happening. Maddening!

Do you use either iTunes Match or Apple Music?

Is the issue with resurrecting Album Artists limited to your purchases?

Note that using Album Artist should be the correct approach when an album has some tracks that have guest or featured artists, except that Apple declined to support the field properly in pre-iOS devices, so other workarounds can still be required.

tt2

I do not use iTunes Match or Apple Music. iTunes Match really screwed up my library when it first came out. I haven't used Apple Music yet because I already use Pandora and Rhapsody/Napster and haven't felt the need to check it out. When I first ripped all my old CDs and even recorded some of my old 33 1/3 vinyl's, iTunes hadn't yet been invented. I started creating my library with RealPlayer and Rhapsody, 20+ years ago. iTunes came later and Album Artist came later than that. To fix the problem would take me weeks of laborious work going into each of my 1400+ albums and copying all the artists to album artist. If I need to separately keep track of an album artist from the artist I have used the comment field. I have tons of classical music and I've sorted it by last name of composer in the Artist Field, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Brahms, Chopin, etc. The orchestra or performer is either in the name of the album or in the comment field. I'd be fine if iTunes didn't keep automatically changing what I have stored every time I play a track. Its maddening.

Set an common "Album Artist" for the album.

Typically Windows Media Player would have filled in the Album Artist field also.

tt2