Sorting confusion if different artists with same album title

[Arkats]

Hello guys,

I am not fully sure if it is a bug or a setting that is not correct but here is the thing:

I have in my collection many albums from different artists called "Single" as they are singles...

When I go into Collection / Genre / Blues rock (for example but it is the same whatever the genre I choose), I have the first line with "All songs of the genre" followed by all album covers of that genre (see Image 1). Then if I go to the album "Single" of the first artist (see Image 2), first the cover is not correct but clicking on that album, it displays all the songs of that genre with the album title "Single" which is a bug because it is supposed to be only the titles of that first artist (see Image 3).

So, what is wrong??

Thank you for your help!!

[MotleyG]

Have you included an AlbumArtist in the tagging of these tracks? It is the unique combination of the two fields Album and AlbumArtist that separates them in the digital world. It is a common issue with album names like "Greatest Hits" where there are thousands of different albums with this name. But only one (usually) that would be "Greatest Hits + The Beatles" for example.

[andrewilley]

It does sound like your tagging could be askew. I just created some test songs with the exact same album name, "Greatest Hits", and with the Artist and the Album Artist tags set correctly to each artist's name, and it worked fine. I saw three different "Greatest Hits" albums in the Genre category "Rock", each by a different artist. 

Andre

[Arkats]

Thank you both of you for your help.

Unfortunately, my tags seem ok (see Image 4 where I have checked the metadata for the three titles that are displayed in the list but shouldn't).

I had a doubt because of the confusion possible between ID3v1 and ID3v2 but long time ago I have erased all v1 from my library and it is well the case for those tracks.

So, that is strange...

Note that I never use Album Artist but only Artist.

[MotleyG]

1 hour ago, Arkats said:

Note that I never use Album Artist but only Artis

This is the cause of the issue you described. See my previous post about how the Album and Albumartist tags are required to create a unique combination for Poweramp (and most other premium players).

11 hours ago, MotleyG said:

Have you included an AlbumArtist in the tagging of these tracks? It is the unique combination of the two fields Album and AlbumArtist that separates them in the digital world. It is a common issue with album names like "Greatest Hits" where there are thousands of different albums with this name. But only one (usually) that would be "Greatest Hits + The Beatles" for example.

If you don't have an Albumartist tag, all albums with the same name will be combined. 

[Arkats]

Thank you MotleyG.

Sorry to have missed the nuance... but why Artist alone is not enough? Especially if Album Artist is empty?

Because it is exactly as you said before "Greatest Hits" + "The Beatles" . Why should I have twice "The Beatles" in Artist + in Album Artist for the sorting working properly?

[MotleyG]

46 minutes ago, Arkats said:

but why Artist alone is not enough? Especially if Album Artist is empty?

The Artist field only shows the performer for that specific song. And this is used by most players on the "Now Playing" screen.

On a compilation album, there could be many tracks, each with different Artists. In these cases the Albumartist is usually set to a common name like "Various Artists".

In other cases where there may be several duets or similar on an Album, there is likely a single common Artist that assembled this Album They would be listed as AlbumArtist. Again each song would then have an Artist field that would include this same name plus any other contributors to each separate track.

It is not uncommon for the Artist and Albumartist field to be exactly the same when the songs of an entire Album are all by the same Artist. But these fields are both still essential to be included so that your library can be ideally managed.

Text values in tags take up virtually no file space, even compared to very highly compressed lossy audio. So I wouldn't worry about that aspect.

[andrewilley]

Unless there is some overriding reason why not, Album Artist tags should always be populated for any album tracks. It is especially needed where the contained tracks may not all be by the same Artist name - such as collections, or when one or more tracks have different collaborating artists (duets, etc). Otherwise you can end up with ambiguous matches if you just rely on the album name - such as in the case you describe with an album named just "Greatest Hits", where there could be several matches. PA will try to fall back to using the track Artist tag, but there's plenty of room for error that way so it's much better to use the proper "bomb proof" mechanism if you can. 

To ensure all of the desired tracks are guaranteed to be contained within one specific album grouping, either use the same Album Artist tag for every track (which is the correct matching method for albums) or edit the Album tag to something more unique to reflect the specific content - such as "The Beatles Greatest Hits" or "Greatest Hits by The Beatles" in your example.

Andre

[Arkats]

Thank you guys.

Of course I know and understand what you are saying about the difference and need between Artist and Album Artist. No problem with that. Except that from my own experience, I got too many problems when Album Artist was filled because it was considered first versus Artist to sort the albums (if I remember well because it is quite a long time ago) so it was messy knowing that I had tagged all my tracks using Artist. In order to keep things precise I have taken the habit to put in Artist "A&B" if it is a duet or "feat. B" in the song title if it is a guest.

Concerning Compilations, I use in MusicBee the "Compilation" tick, which put all the album's track in a "#Various Artists" folder but do not specify it in the Album Artist that remains empty.

But then, reading the knowledge base on Metadata, it seems that I have made the wrong choice... But if you pay attention, it is a bit weird because Artist is always presented before Album Artist and it has even the tag "TPE1" while the following is "TPE2". So why giving preference to the second one at the detriment of the first?

Then reading "Should Album Artist tags be missing, Poweramp will fall back to trying to group songs into albums based on the Album and Artist tags instead - but often with mixed levels of success, as Artist names can vary track-by-track - such as featured artists, duets, compilations, etc." So, as my Artist tags are different and Album Artist is empty, why PA is not able to separate them properly? For me it is really something that should be improved.

 

[Arkats]

But then, I was rechecking the AP Settings and in Settings / Collection / Lists / Albums you have some settings to choose and one is "Album Artists for Albums" on/off which favors Artist Album over Artist and it is precised that it affects the sorting.

In my case it is off. So, I think it is a bug that AP is putting different artists as seen in the Image 3 when it is clearly specific to one artist and that the metadata of all these files are correct.

[6b6561]

I have been down this road a long time ago, having similar arguments as you do and there has been other threads along the same path over the years in the forum... It's painful to re-tag a large library, but at the end it's worth it.

The situation with having Album Artist blank is basically saying that all your albums are by Artist "" (blank) and that takes away sorting functionality.

I was pretty annoyed when I started correcting my tags, but I'm so happy that I took the step and did it. It could be automated with some tagging tool that allows for scripting.

I haven't bothered with the multiple artist separation thing as that feature came after I did my re-tagging, so I'm just appending a (feat. xxx) to the song title. So in most cases TPE1 is the same as TPE2 except for compilation albums where I use Various Artists for the Album Artist.  

[MotleyG]

On 6/29/2024 at 6:43 AM, Arkats said:

So, as my Artist tags are different and Album Artist is empty, why PA is not able to separate them properly? For me it is really something that should be improved.

If the AlbumArtist tag is left empty and PA has to guess from existing tags to create the albums, they will get split if there are different Artist tags for the same Album. Guessing will never lead to accurate results. Use the AlbumArtist tag, or don't, it is your library. But your choice to leave them out will cause issues like this in other players as well.

 

On 6/29/2024 at 6:43 AM, Arkats said:

Concerning Compilations, I use in MusicBee the "Compilation" tick, which put all the album's track in a "#Various Artists" folder but do not specify it in the Album Artist that remains empty.

This is unique to MusicBee, so as you can see it is not a universal solution. Again this involves a level of guessing for the AlbumArtist field even in MusicBee.
 

On 6/29/2024 at 6:43 AM, Arkats said:

Except that from my own experience, I got too many problems when Album Artist was filled because it was considered first versus Artist to sort the albums (if I remember well because it is quite a long time ago) so it was messy knowing that I had tagged all my tracks using Artist

I can't say I have had this experience. Any tag that a player cannot read is simply ignored. It is far better to have tag details available for any situation and not need it, then to need it and not have it at the ready.

 

Any decent tag editor can help make this a quick task. Try mp3tag as it is free (for PC) and a very powerful tool just for tagging. There is plenty of support on their site, and in the forum. Adding the AlbumArtist tag is a common request and you will find many ways to action this change for your library.

[Arkats]

Thank you both for your help.

I am terribly sorry, but I still don't get it.

1. "Artist" is a metadata as all the others like "Album", "Song Title", etc. So, it is "understandable" and manageable by PA.

2. There is the setting that allows you to choose "Album Artist" over "Artist" so when it is off, it is supposed to choose "Artist" over "Album Artist".

3. So PA can sort my titles considering metadata "Artist" and "Album".

It is just what I need.

I don't understand why in the way you present things, you seem to deny the existence and the possible use of the metadata "Artist". Why giving so much importance to Album Artist when comes first the metadata Artist?

1 hour ago, 6b6561 said:

The situation with having Album Artist blank is basically saying that all your albums are by Artist "" (blank) and that takes away sorting functionality.

If blank, then PA considers the metadata "Artist" to sort. But with the specific setting, PA do not even need to consider "Album Artist" and go directly to "Artist".

46 minutes ago, MotleyG said:

If the AlbumArtist tag is left empty and PA has to guess from existing tags to create the albums, they will get split if there are different Artist tags for the same Album.

Sorry, but I don't understand why PA should guess? It just splits according to logic using Artist and Album tags.

53 minutes ago, MotleyG said:

Any decent tag editor can help make this a quick task. Try mp3tag as it is free (for PC) and a very powerful tool just for tagging. There is plenty of support on their site, and in the forum. Adding the AlbumArtist tag is a common request and you will find many ways to action this change for your library.

Thank you, I keep that in mind... hoping to get what I need before going that way... 😉 

[Fitzian]

@Arkats

Track Artists vs Album Artist.

Your library is populated with the former, not the latter.

If identical album names occur, how to split? The assumption is that these track artists all feature on some unified album title, and with no album artist to differentiate them, they are co-mingled.

That's all this is. Bite the bullet and fix your tags already.

[MotleyG]

1 hour ago, Arkats said:

I am terribly sorry, but I still don't get it.

I really can't explain it any better. Albumartist is a key metadata tag field. It exists for a reason. If you choose not to populate the Albumartist tag, expect to get unexpected results when browsing.

[andrewilley]

4 hours ago, Arkats said:

2. There is the setting that allows you to choose "Album Artist" over "Artist" so when it is off, it is supposed to choose "Artist" over "Album Artist".

No there isn't any such setting. There are three settings that allow you to display the contents of the Album Artist tags inside of lists (instead of the normal Artist tag shown under a song title) and also on the Player Screen. That will also cause such lists to be sorted based on the displayed Album Artist tag rather than sorting on the Artist tag. It won't change how the tracks are grouped into albums though.

Settings=>Library=>Lists=>Album Artist Label for Tracks
Settings=>Library=>Lists=>Album Artist Label for Albums
Settings=>Library=>Lists=>Album Artist Label for Album Artist Tracks

You may find Settings=>Library=>Lists=>Join Albums might help you, as it will prevent songs without any Album Artist tag from being split apart (it's a largely obsolete switch, which can help with poorly tagged files) .

 

However, it doesn't matter how many times you rephrase the same observations, the only correct and safe method to group various tracks into one album entity is to make sure that the Album tags are the same for all of the tracks that you want to include, AND ALSO the Album Artist tags are also identical across all of those desired tracks. The Artist tag can be anything you want, and may be the same or different for each song as it applies to the performer of the SONG, not the ALBUM.

Should you choose not to do that, the results can be unpredictable and are not supported.

Andre