Appears On

[Absinthequ]

Multiple artists tag support has been requested and I do want that also but I'm proposing something different. A featured tag support. 

I think the next evolution of the player is to do something like Spotify has. Separating album lists into sections :

Albums:

Singles & EP's:

Appears On/Featured On:

Being able to link artists to songs they are featured on that belong to another artist doesn't even exist in Poweramp. A multiple artist tag would take care of some scenarios but you wouldn't want to use that for artists like Lil Wayne for example, who has features on 100's of other artists songs. His own albums would be lost in the list of albums he's featured on. You would want a separate section for features.

Don't get me wrong, a multiple artist tag that allows albums to be listed with the regular albums would be a nice addition too. But I think we need a featured section also.

[andrewilley]

I guess it might be possible if your music was tagged using the TPE1 tag for the main artist, and TPE2 for the "also appearing" artist. However most multiple-artist song files are tagged by including more than one name in TPE1 I think. Or even the new-fangled "featuring" (or "feat.") designation which seems to have become popular over the last few years to replace the word "and". 

Andre

[Absinthequ]

It could be a special code we have to add or as simple as Poweramp recognizing "feat" or "featuring" like it does with ; for genre as a separator and using the , or & character as a seperator for each artist after. This would work for most songs already tagged.

I would re-tag my entire massive library with a special code/character created just for this if needed. 

[andrewilley]

"&" would not work, for example if you have an artist like "Adam & the Ants".

";" or "//" are the separators that Poweramp uses (and not simply "/", as that work break genres like "Rock/Pop" or bands like "AC/DC").

However. as I said, there is no commonly used way to define primary and secondary artists, other than looking at the order they appear. Using the TPE1 and TPE2 tags would work, but is not technically the correct use of those variants.

Andre

[Absinthequ]

If Poweramp simply recognized everything after the keywords "Feat." "Featuring" or "ft." In either "artist", "album artist" or "song title" fields as a featured artist it would be mostly plug and play for most songs downloaded from most places.

So for example:

Eminem - Spend Some Time featuring 50 Cent; Obie Trice; Stat Quo 

Or

Eminem featuring 50 Cent; Obie Trice; Stat Quo - Spend Some Time 

This would show up as artist Eminem and then would show up as a featured on song under 50Cent,  Obie Trice & Stat Quo.

The only issue that wound arise is people having to edit the tags to add the separator ; for multiple featured artists. 

I know that's not how the fields were designed, they were never designed for featuring artists at all. That doesn't mean we can't make it work. Other apps are trying to work around this also. 

[andrewilley]

It would need to be optional, as I'm sure there would turn out to be some bizarre cases where you wouldn't want that phrase to cause a split.

Andre