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Album List - Sort by Album Artist


bdmarvel

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I have a large collection of music and I prefer to browse by album. In the List Options for the album list I can sort by Artist, which works fine for most albums, but compilations or albums with various artists seem to be listed under one (and only one) of the artists, rather than the Album Artist specified in the ID3 tag. I'm looking to purchase Poweramp (using the trial now) but this might be a deal breaker for me.

All I want is the ability to browse my music by the album, just like I would a stack of physical cds. Is this likely to be implemented soon?

Update: After checking several compilations it seems that the artist listed in the Album List (regardless of sort order) is the artist on the last track in the album. So if an album has 25 songs by 25 different bands, the album view lists it under the band from track 25, rather than the album artist (Various Artists). The albums are only listed once. Is this just a bug? Any information on a fix would be much appreciated. Thank you.

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So I've tried out a bunch of other music players today, none even coming close to Poweramp's functionality or slick interface. Of the 15 or so I've tried, every one of them had the same problem (listing and sorting albums under the artist of either the first or last track instead of the using the album artist tag), so I'm wondering if this is a problem with the way Android handles the album artist tag, if it handles it at all. I did notice that in Poweramp, though I can edit tags, the album artist tag is not visible. So my feature request would be to include (if possible) the album artist tage and change the Album List view to prioritize the album artist tag over the artist tag when determining an album's artist. In particular, this prioritization should occur before the Album list is sorted in order to list the albums in the proper order. I'm really stumped as to why no music players on android seem to get this right. I'd really like to hear some developer feedback on whether this is possible.

In the meantime, I've come up with a less than ideal work-around. I include an "album_artist_fix.mp3" file (less than a second long) with "Various Artists" as the artist tag, 9999 as the track tag, "Album Artist Fix" as the track name, and the appropriate album art embedded. This allows me to browse albums correctly, but it also lists an extra track for each of these albums, which is quite annoying, and it's a pain to implement.

I have decided to purchase Poweramp, but I really hope this issue can be fixed. I'll keep checking back on this forum regularly to keep up on potential fixes. Thank you.

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My understanding is that this is being implemented for an upcoming Poweramp version. The official twitter account makes mention of it on Jan 16

https://twitter.com/Poweramp2

so it's definitely on the developer's radar. I don't really know a lot about Android development, but my understanding is that Google has not built that functionality into Android, and most (non Poweramp) players rely on the stock APIs to manage the music library. I am very excited for this feature, and will certainly purchase another copy of Poweramp (somehow) because really, it will be the only software out there with this feature, and that's the easiest and most effective way I know of communicate my enthusiasm for software that provides that much value.

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Thanks for pointing me to the tweet JonBoy. I'm very happy to hear it's already in the works. Until then, I've gotten used to my workaround.

One other (sort-of related) issue I've noticed though, is that albums with the same name (such as Greatest Hits, but there are other cases of multiple albums with the same name, eg. Eleventeen by Eve 6, and Eleventeen by Daisy Chainsaw) get lumped into the same album list in Poweramp. This behavior does not occur in the stock Samsung player on my Galaxy S3, so I think it's specific to the way Powergramo lists and/or sorts albums. I know I have seen this issue mentioned before, however, so I expect it's already in the works too. Currently the only workaround I know for this is to rename the albums so they are tagged differently, but I'm meticulous with my ID3 tags and prefer not to make such modifications.

I suspect that when the album artist list is available, the ability of the app to check the album artist tag will make parsing multiple albums with the same name trivial.

So far, I have to say I'm very happy with my purchase. :)

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Update: After checking several compilations it seems that the artist listed in the Album List (regardless of sort order) is the artist on the last track in the album. So if an album has 25 songs by 25 different bands, the album view lists it under the band from track 25, rather than the album artist (Various Artists).

Can't confirm this.

Poweramp is a great, if not the best music player for Android, but it really (and I mean _really_. I've a lot of compilations, they f*ck up my artist list in Poweramp.) annoys me that it cannot handle "Album Artist"-tags.

To my knowledge, there is at least one player for Android, that can handle this tag: Google's own Play Music. :)

I hope this groundbreaking (...) feature will be implemented soon, otherwise I'll have too look for another player.

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Poweramp library=>menu button=>List options=>Albums by Artist.

I appreciate your work, but please read my topic before replying. Sorting by artist is one thing, sorting by album artist is quite another. It seems that Poweramp determines an album by name only (hence multiple albums with the same name are counted as a single album) and they are sorted and labeled by the artist on the last track instead of using the Album Artist ID3 tag. I'd like the option to sort by Album Artist, not Artist. Or better yet, for the Album List to prioritize the Album Artist tag, when present, over the artist tag when using the current artist sorting option. Also, it would be nice if Poweramp could use the album artist tag when determining albums in order to keep multiple albums with the same name from being treated as the same album.

Contrary to urban_overload's experience, sorting the Album List by Artist does NOT list the album separately for each artist. (It sounds as if hes looking at the Artist List, rather than the Album List, sorted by Artist). In the Album List, the album is only listed once, as it should be, but it's labeled and sorted improperly. Take the soundtrack for Clueless as an example, which Poweramp incorrectly sorts and labels as a Jill Sobule album. If the Album Artist tag says "Various Artists", then the album should be labeled and sorted under Various Artists, and not under Jill Sobule simply because she's the artist on the last track. The album includes 13 other tracks, none of which are by Jill Sobule.

Your lack of reading comprehension has made me question the wisdom of my purchase now. How can I put my faith in a company who is unwilling even to read the contents of a topic before replying?

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  • 1 month later...

Agreed. Album Artist feature is essential.

+100 from me! Any idea when the new version with 'album artist' tag handled properly is out? Just spent a few hours cleaning up all my mp3 tags so they are as 'clean' as I can make them (part of the issue was to ensure 'consistency', as in, with compilation albums, ensuring they had an identical 'album artist' tag. Probably a little too OCD for some .... :-) )

Dave

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  • 4 weeks later...

There have been so many request for this feature now. It needs to be implemented! It's been promised in the illusive 3.0 version, but there hasn't been any indication of this version's release.

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guys, sorry for asking, what this mean (Album List - Sort by Album Artist)

Can you explain in detail ?

 

At a guess, it would mean that someone wants to sort their album list using the Album Artist tag rather than the current Track Artist tag (which might be different in cases such as collections, duets, collaborations, etc). It seems to be fairly well explained in the first post though.

 

Andre

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  • 2 months later...
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+1 for this.

 

could the developers please say if or when this will be implemented?

i know this feature was requested long ago by many people so it is a very popular request.

 

when is version 3 expected to be released?

 

thanks.

 

for those that don't know album artist is, it is explained by a few of the early posts in this topic - basically it would make using albums with several artists on (eg film soundtracks etc) more usable.

 

 

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