Hi all,
I'm trying to make an AppleScript to clean up my mp3 tags, but during this development I stumbled upon a rather curious use case where I am clueless as to how the metadata should be filled in properly. To be honest, it is only hypothetical, but it forces me to think thoroughly about the meaning of certain metadata.
Now, the problem is, how can I make any difference between the two albums? If I make all tracks 'Part of a compilation', iTunes will group all 30 tracks in one album called "Greatest Hits of the 90's". I cannot set an album artist, because there is intrinsically no single artist that created and/or is associated with the album. Putting 'Various artists' in there leads to the same problem as the compilation flag. iTunes cannot even distinguish between the albums by looking at the total number of tracks, since that is similar as well.
The way I see it, I can only think of one elegant solution: use the International Standard Recording Code. However, iTunes doesn't seem to use this particular ID3 frame (see 4.2.1 of the ID3v2.4 informal standard).
A workaround that would suffice for now may be to distinguish the albums by album name, such as "Greatest ... 90's (1)" and "Greatest ... 90's (2)", but that would not be very elegant.
So, my question in this particular use case is what would be the best way to tag these mp3 files?
And more in general, if I try to query the library through AppleScript, how do I select all tracks of a single album, without the possibility of accidentally selecting too many or too few tracks, such as would be very likely in the previous use case?
Kind regards,
Jelle Fresen
I'm trying to make an AppleScript to clean up my mp3 tags, but during this development I stumbled upon a rather curious use case where I am clueless as to how the metadata should be filled in properly. To be honest, it is only hypothetical, but it forces me to think thoroughly about the meaning of certain metadata.
Suppose I have two albums, and I want iTunes to group all tracks of one album together, and all tracks of the other album together. This should be the case in all 4 viewing options (as List, as Album List, as Grid and as Cover Flow). However, in this particular use case both albums happen to have the same name: "Greatest Hits of the 90's". Being greatest hits albums, all tracks are typically of different artists. And to make it even more ambiguous, both albums will have 15 tracks.
Now, the problem is, how can I make any difference between the two albums? If I make all tracks 'Part of a compilation', iTunes will group all 30 tracks in one album called "Greatest Hits of the 90's". I cannot set an album artist, because there is intrinsically no single artist that created and/or is associated with the album. Putting 'Various artists' in there leads to the same problem as the compilation flag. iTunes cannot even distinguish between the albums by looking at the total number of tracks, since that is similar as well.
The way I see it, I can only think of one elegant solution: use the International Standard Recording Code. However, iTunes doesn't seem to use this particular ID3 frame (see 4.2.1 of the ID3v2.4 informal standard).
A workaround that would suffice for now may be to distinguish the albums by album name, such as "Greatest ... 90's (1)" and "Greatest ... 90's (2)", but that would not be very elegant.
So, my question in this particular use case is what would be the best way to tag these mp3 files?
And more in general, if I try to query the library through AppleScript, how do I select all tracks of a single album, without the possibility of accidentally selecting too many or too few tracks, such as would be very likely in the previous use case?
Kind regards,
Jelle Fresen