iTunes playlist split into non-existent/indefinable albums.

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iTunes playlist split into non-existent/indefinable albums.

I have a smart playlist made of Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. I have all the songs set as disc 1 of 1, all tracks are numbered one to 500 and yet they will only appear in alphabetical order when I view the playlist itself (even when I have the 'album' or '#' sections highlighted), and in Compilations the list appears divided into six different albums in apparently random numerical order. I have checked the sorting info and every conceivable other way to get the songs into the right order and nothing seems to work.

Can anyone tell me something I'm missing? Any help would be appreciated. My only other option is to hit it with something but I doubt that will work.

Thanks.

Latest iTunes is installed.

Posted on Mar 29, 2015 9:15 AM

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Answer 1

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turingtest2

Level 10

272,707 points

Mar 29, 2015 9:50 AM in response to AlexCXII

If the same set of songs is to appear as an Album it should have common values for Album, Sort Album, Album Artist, Sort Album Artist, and the compilation flag. If you think you've already done that add a trailing X to each of the values, and invert the compilation flag, apply the change, then remove the trailing Xs and flip the compilation flag again. This should fix things so that iTunes treats all of the tracks as coming from the one album.

See Grouping tracks into albums for more details.

tt2

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Answer 2

hhgttg27

Level 5

5,591 points

Mar 29, 2015 9:52 AM in response to AlexCXII

A playlist is just a list - either one you populate by adding songs to it ("regular" playlist) or by defining rules that determine which songs are included (smart playlist). Membership of a playlist doesn't alter any of the metadata defined for songs - and iTunes assumes that every song is part of exactly one album (where, if the Album tag is blank, tracks will be grouped into an "Unknown Album" per artist). Ordering within the playlist is valid only in the context of the playlist itself - which is exactly what you are seeing.

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