Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that despite having all the data it needs Apple has managed to screw up how iTunes (11) displays your music.
A song has lots of data associated with it, the three that concern me right now are:
- Artist
- Album
- Album Artist
If I have an album by an artist then the artist and album artist fields can be the same and there is no problem. I go to artist view and I see the whole album by that artist listed there. Likewise I go to the album view and I see all of the songs by that artist in that album.
But say that I have a compilation album with many different artists. This is where things are broken.
I have the album name filled in for all of the songs, no problem. I fill in all the artist info, and for album artists I put "Various". I can see the whole album, with all of its songs, in the album view, but when I go to artist view those songs are not listed under their artist's sections but instead are listed under 'Various".
Ok, so I delete the album artist field, now all those songs have is artist info, and yay!, the songs get listed in each individual artist's section in artist view, but now the album doesn't appear as a single entity in album view, I get an album entry for each song.
Bottom line, iTunes is not smart enough to know it should group songs together if they have the same album name but not album artist, AND its not smart enough to use song artist when displays artist view, it takes album artist instead.
Grrrrr! This means you can have one of these two views working properly but not both!
A song has lots of data associated with it, the three that concern me right now are:
- Artist
- Album
- Album Artist
If I have an album by an artist then the artist and album artist fields can be the same and there is no problem. I go to artist view and I see the whole album by that artist listed there. Likewise I go to the album view and I see all of the songs by that artist in that album.
But say that I have a compilation album with many different artists. This is where things are broken.
I have the album name filled in for all of the songs, no problem. I fill in all the artist info, and for album artists I put "Various". I can see the whole album, with all of its songs, in the album view, but when I go to artist view those songs are not listed under their artist's sections but instead are listed under 'Various".
Ok, so I delete the album artist field, now all those songs have is artist info, and yay!, the songs get listed in each individual artist's section in artist view, but now the album doesn't appear as a single entity in album view, I get an album entry for each song.
Bottom line, iTunes is not smart enough to know it should group songs together if they have the same album name but not album artist, AND its not smart enough to use song artist when displays artist view, it takes album artist instead.
Grrrrr! This means you can have one of these two views working properly but not both!