Different Artist but same Album Artist

ngalayko wrote:

.... but when i open "artists" tab in iTunes...

Ngalyako,

You just answered your own question. Don't use Artists view.

Artists view - and the same goes for Albums view - is for people who like a screen with many colorful cute album pix. Both of them are endlessly frustrating for anyone who seriously wants to manage their music.

Put your music into Songs view. And, to get the most value, go to the View menu and activate the column browser.

In the column browser, you can have a choice of using Artist or Album Artist, by setting the option as shown below:

"Artists view - and the same goes for Albums view - is for people who like a screen with many colorful cute album pix. Both of them are endlessly frustrating for anyone who seriously wants to manage their music."

That's something of a sweeping statement - its perfectly possible to "seriously manage" your music in conjunction with Albums view, as long as you understand and follow a few basic principles of how iTunes organizes media. I rarely use anything but Albums view, and I don't encounter any frustrations in doing so. I'll admit that I don't do what the OP describes - every album in my library is a commercial release, not my own creation - but the same basics apply: any set of tracks that have a common Artist (or Album Artist, where Artist values differ) and Album value are presented in the iTunes as one album, unless Part of a Compilation is set to "Yes" in which case the artist data is disregarded - tracks are aggregated by Album only. Of course, unless you have an old iDevice which doesn't recognize the Album Artist task use of the Part of a Compilation flag is unnecessary.

With respect to the OP's question, selecting all the tracks you want to collect together and setting Album Artist and Album to the values you want, leaving Artist values as-is, will group all the tracks into a single album. You should also check that Part of a Compilation is set to the same value (I'd recommend No) for every track.

With respect to the OP's question, selecting all the tracks you want to collect together and setting Album Artist and Album to the values you want, leaving Artist values as-is, will group all the tracks into a single album.

HHGTTG - Sure, but for people making custom compilations that is the problem right there. For example, on the OP's list is Nirvana's song "Smells Like Teen Spirit," which came out in 1991 on the album Nevermind. I would certainly not propose that he change the Album field to something other than Nevermind, thereby ruining perfectly good data.

Agreed ... the OP's need would be much better handled with a playlist rather than creating "new" albums that over-write valid data. The "problem", if it can be described as such, is the song-oriented paradigm that iTunes is built on - and that many users seem to prefer (bizarre as it seems to me*) - and a lack of understanding of iTunes' underlying data model where:

• Each track is part of exactly one album (how the artist / publisher organizes music)
• Each track may be part of zero to many playlists (how the user chooses to organize music)

* I can't imagine why anyone would listen to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" except as track 1 of "Nevermind".

hhgttg27 wrote:

Agreed ... the OP's need would be much better handled with a playlist rather than creating "new" albums that over-write valid data. The "problem", if it can be described as such, is the song-oriented paradigm that iTunes is built on - and that many users seem to prefer (bizarre as it seems to me*) - and a lack of understanding of iTunes' underlying data model where:

• Each track is part of exactly one album (how the artist / publisher organizes music)
• Each track may be part of zero to many playlists (how the user chooses to organize music)

* I can't imagine why anyone would listen to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" except as track 1 of "Nevermind".

Well, in Ngalayko's case, "Smells Like Teem Spirit" is track 189 of his "Legends of Rock" compilation. The best way to represent that in iTunes would indeed be in a playlist, using Songs view, with each track having its own correct information (including album and year). That would the natural way to use iTunes for this situation, and it is simply a waste of time trying to get Albums view to do it right.

I would quibble a bit with your description that in iTunes "Each track is part of exactly one album (how the artist / publisher organizes music)." It would be more accurate to say that each track contains a text field for "Album." That field is user editable and may contain information that has nothing to do with the artist/publisher.