Multiple artist/genre tag support!

[SM26]

Hey @maxmp

any chance that you could implement something like this?

the community has been asking this since 2011

I really hope that you'll hear our request.

[jbot]

+1, such feature is pretty useful

[Cesarze]

Hi everybody! Is available this feature?

[andrewilley]

1 hour ago, Cesarze said:

Hi everybody! Is available this feature?

Multiple Genres, yes. Multiple Artists, not yet.

Andre

[Thomi]

+1

When will this feature be available for the artist tag too? Some people are waiting since 2011 ^^

[andrewilley]

But just think what a lovely surprise it will be when Max does find the time to get around to implementing this. 

It would certainly reduce the length of my own 'Artists' list a lot anyway. I have tons of tracks with slightly different multiple permutations of broadly the same people, which currently all show as separate items in the list.

Andre

[Jhoy007]

+1

[null]

I'd really use this feature, it would really make my music library tidier… If you did this via the album artist sort tag or even by the MusicBrainz ID (wink wink) to avoid confusion internally AND by the user this would be a no-brainer…

[pvjraghavan]

This feature would be really great for me, many songs that I have are performed by multiple artists. So this is one of much needed feature for me and I would believe for anyone having songs performed by multiple artist.

[kescherAmp]

Given that this is what's specified in the VorbisComment documentation (see last bullet point in section "Implications")  which is used in several formats Poweramp is able to use, such as FLAC, I wonder how this is not a thing yet 😅

I have just recently made all my FLAC files conform to this specification, and was a little bit disappointed to only see the first artist of a track show up at all.

Please, when implementing this, please seperate the artists properly from one another when displayed (e.g. with semicolons). Some other players that already support this only separate this using a space, which is terrible.

[maxmp]

Do you want combined artists (as they are now) to exist in library when multiple artists feature is implemented?
Currently for Poweramp Artist1;Artist2 is a single artists category entry and splitting these to 2 artists may be (will be) unexpected by some users.

[superluig164]

22 minutes ago, maxmp said:

Do you want combined artists (as they are now) to exist in library when multiple artists feature is implemented?
Currently for Poweramp Artist1;Artist2 is a single artists category entry and splitting these to 2 artists may be (will be) unexpected by some users.

I could foresee it being added as an option, by default separating artists but allowing users to turn it off if they prefer the old behaviour.  Same for genres - and I also think it should be an option to set the seperating character(s).  For example, I use "/" in my library, though some use ";" and some use other characters.

[maxmp]

@superluig164 For genres it’s already possible to set the splitting character (search settings for “genre”).

[invaderzim]

11 minutes ago, maxmp said:

@superluig164 For genres it’s already possible to set the splitting character (search settings for “genre”).

Split, yes. But in the Info/Tags section they are not separated and tapping does nothing. This has been requested in the other post. Thanks Max.

[andrewilley]

17 hours ago, maxmp said:

Do you want combined artists (as they are now) to exist in library when multiple artists feature is implemented?

I would suggest that it's left up to the content. If the desire is for the combined artist group to be treated as an entity, then the name should be included in that desired format in the tag.

Let's take Bridge Over Troubled Water as an example:
Some people may only want this song to ever be listed as being by "Simon & Garfunkel", i.e. always as a single entity, effectively as a group rather than two dueting singers. Other people may prefer to see the two artist names, "Paul Simon" and "Art Garfunkel" individually, in which case the tag contents should be formatted as "Paul Simon ; Art Garfunkel". Of course, if you want to see all variants in the library list, you could simply tag the song as being by "Simon & Garfunkel ; Paul Simon ; Art Garfunkel" to cover all bases and then it would appear in all three forms.

Separator characters could easily use the same option as for Genre, I don't think it needs another separate list. Simple "/" and "," should be avoided though, as they would cause issues with band names such as "AD/DC", "Crosby, Stills and Nash", etc. I would suggest defaulting the list going forward to the current ";" and "//", but also add "\" and "\\", and maybe "|" too? Then let the user add anything else they want.

I think all of the above should apply to the category lists by the way. At a song level (i.e. in songs lists and in the Player screen) the individual Title/Album/Artist details should be shown just as they are at the moment, meaning that multiple tags might often be seen. So in the Player screen, Bridge Over Troubled Water would still be shown as being by some thing like "Paul Simon ; Art Garfunkel" (if that's what the Artist tag contains) regardless of which category playback was started from.

 

16 hours ago, invaderzim said:

But in the Info/Tags section they are not separated and tapping does nothing. 

I agree, it would make sense with any multiple-content tags (Genre, Artist, and any other similar tags that crop up over time) that the Info/Tags screen should show the individually parsed items as separate clickable links. For example, currently in Genre you might see "Rock // Indie // Electronic", whereas it would be more useful to have "Rock // Indie // Electronic".

Oh, and FLAC users would like to see separate physical instances of the same tag name (which is permitted in the Vorbis spec) to be interpreted correctly and treated as multiple Genres, multiple Artists, etc too.

Andre

[superluig164]

Agree with everything Andre said.  

[w3wilkes]

I think Andre's description is right on the money.

[Absinthequ]

I am one of the biggest cheerleaders for this but I think this could be not usable depending on how it is configured.

I see a lot of people saying this will clean up their library a lot, but I think that's based on them believing this will behave exactly as the Genre category does now.

The other players I have tried do something weird, if you tag an artist "Paul Simon ; Art Garfunkel ; Simon & Garfunkel" you will get an Artist that shows exactly that tag as well as 3 individual artists. This is horrible and cleans up nothing. If you listen to hip hop for example, every other song features somebody, you have 300+ Lil Waynes and 300+ Eminem artists in your artist library.

That being said, assuming this works exactly like genre and doesn't show that mess. On to the next major concern. 

How do you see this when viewing an album and song titles in an a list view? The example andrew uses can be disguised for a group album, but how does this display for features?

Fur example, once I click on an "artist", Seeing albums with the multi tag will result in every song with a feature to show as a different album, which is horrible, so it needs to Revert to the first artist of the tag or "album artist" for sorting of albums and displaying artist name for that album.

A better example is, If I click on Dr. Dre, and he's featured on an Eminem album, how does Poweramp know which artist to display as the artist of that album? If it displays the artist tag with multi, then a second song on the same album that features Dr. Dre and Nate Dogg would show as a different album and so on. You also don't want to see Dr. Dre listed as the artist of that album. I can't see any other way than to select the first artist of the tag, or the "album artist" as the sorting and name to display.

The next concern is song list view when in an album. I think here is where you need to see the entire Artist multi tag.  Otherwise the featured artists are invisible when looking at song titles. It definitely can't say it's a song by Dr. Dre and not even mention Eminem only because I got there by following the Dr. Dre link and if I did get there by going through Dr. Dre and then it only showed Eminem and no info on Dr. Dre, it would start to get confusing.

I think when playing, the player should show the multi artist tag as well. It's the same situation where all of the features of that song are invisible if it doesn't.

Edited May 14, 2020 by Absinthequ

[superluig164]

Why would the artist tags be hidden while in the album?

[Absinthequ]

3 hours ago, superluig164 said:

Why would the artist tags be hidden while in the album?

Some of the others players I've tried use the multiple artist you browsed from as the artist. For example, if you click on Dr. Dre, and he has a small part on an Eminem song on the Marshal Mathers LP, and you tag artist as "Eminem; Dr. Dre" since you browsed Dr. Dre it lists the album as "Dr. Dre - The Marshal Mather LP" and each song is listed as "Dr. Dre - Song Title".   - This sucks and makes no sense why it would be set up like this, but that's how some of the other apps I've tried work. They list "Eminem; Dr. Dre" as an artist also. Which also sucks.  

[superluig164]

Yeah that sounds dumb, I don't see any reason for Max to program it like that.  Just have the songs show up as they are tagged, but in different places.

[maxmp]

@Absinthequ your concerns are valid and all the logic/organization problems is what is slowing down this feature implementation.

Also add Album Artist tag (which may replace, compliment, or can be ignored; and can also affect album categorization) to the mix.

Currently I see multiple artists feature as optional addition of those artists into Artists and Album Artists categories. Everything else is not affected, i.e. albums are still split based one whole tag, joined artists are shown everywhere (as it is now), etc.

[andrewilley]

IMHO, if the Artist tag contains several individual items then that is how they should be displayed, one by one, rather than as a combined entity. If you do want to see the combined version in your lists, then include that wording in the tag. For example, to use the modern trend of using "feat" instead of "and" (still kinda yuck, by the way) you would set a tag of "Eminem feat. Dr Dre ; Eminem ; Dr. Dre" to make it appear in all three forms.

The artist wording shown at the top of an Album view ought be always Album Artist if that tag exists, otherwise it should be the Artist tag taken from the first song in the list. If that song has two artists listed, I guess the first one ought to be one displayed? (so if that first song has "Eminem; Dr. Dre" then the album info header should show the artist as "Eminem" not "Dr Dre". But normally, the Album Artist tag should be used in preference though). 

Andre

[superluig164]

Yeah, showing multiple artists as one tag (as it is now) is also quite nonsensical to me.  If multiple artists contributed to a song, the song should show up in both of their "Artist" views, and perhaps even show up twice in the list when a large playlist is sorted by "artist."  Album artist should stay as is and be used to categorize albums, but the artists displayed below songs should be the ones contained in the song's tag.  If someone does not use the Album Artist tag, then I would say the first artist in the list should be used to categorize an album.  Perhaps it could also be optional to just always combine Album names regardless of the artist tags - but I suspect only certain people would benefit from this feature.  Regardless, options are always better, in my opinion.

[superluig164]

I could also see the artist shown below the Album view taken from the most common artist in the album - say there are 5 songs, take the mode of all the artists and whichever one shows up the most, that artist will be shown as the "album artist" when there's no album artist tag.