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#1 |
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Prospect
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 42
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Cover Flow/Album View question
I have a rnadom question that I noticed when flipping through Apple's new Cover Flow feature. If I have an album that has a main artist featuring a few other artists on some songs, and the album comes up multiple times in Cover Flow/Album View. This occurs even when I organize my library by Album.
Example: I have The album PCD by The Pussycat Dolls. I have 2 songs by "The Pussycat Dolls." I have 1 song by "The Pussycat Dolls featuring Busta Rhymes" I have 1 song by "The Pussycat Dolls featuring Snoop Dogg" So the album shows up 3 times. Any way around this, without changing the song tags? |
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#2 |
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Hall of Famer
Join Date: Nov 2004
Posts: 3,818
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I noticed it sorts by the sort order in the list at the bottom. The sort order affects type-ahead as well. If you sort by song, typing selects by song name. If you sort by album, you select by album name. I'm glad to see a lot of the shortcuts in the original standalone CoverFlow made it in, like scroll wheel and arrow key support and type-ahead selection, but it's still missing a few features like full screen CoverFlow and the nifty OpenGL physics that happened when you moused near a cover. Maybe they'll add those later.
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#3 |
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All Star
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 726
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Use "Album Artist" tag
There is a new tag in the song info called "Album Artist". If you set that to the main artist (e.g. "The Pussycat Dolls") for all the songs on the album, then the songs will be correctly grouped in Cover Flow / Album Cover view.
EDIT: I think this tag info is kept by iTunes and not embedded in the actual song file, but don't quote me on that! Last edited by EatsWithFingers; 09-13-2006 at 06:10 PM. Reason: Forgot to Add Bit |
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#4 |
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MVP
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Hello London Calling
Posts: 1,787
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I sorted mine out by selecting them all in the list view, and getting info on them all at the same time.
Then set the is compilation to yes. This put them back to how they where mean't to be. That way you do not need to change any artist details. |
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#5 |
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All Star
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 726
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Mark: That's fine if the album is a compilation, but there may be cases where the songs are all by the same artist, with some tracks being collaborations with other artists.
For example, on Queen's Greatest Hits II, Under Pressure is by Queen and David Bowie. I do not consider the album a compilation since all the songs are technically by Queen. However, this distinction is a purely personal preference. Also, the Album Artist tag can be set on multiple songs at once, so it would just be a case of entering the Album Artist instead of checking the Compilation box. |
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#6 |
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MVP
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Hello London Calling
Posts: 1,787
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What happens if you have more than one album by Queen , but enter the word queen in the Album artist of both of them??
*** just tested it. works ok, Actually I like the new tag. so thanks for pointing it out. The reason is if you do not use it on a lot of my albums under the covers you get the album name twice. using your method works to get the albums back as one album, but also puts the second line under the cover to good use. : - ) Last edited by mark hunte; 09-13-2006 at 06:53 PM. |
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#7 | |||||||||||||||||||
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All Star
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 726
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The first line gives the album name, the second line gives the album artist name. In the case of compilations, the album artist is "Various Artists". For regular albums, the album artist is either the album artist tag (if it is set) or the song artist (where all songs on the album have the same song artist). This is why the albums get split if the song artists are different, and the album is not a compilation. Also, songs with no artist or album names just have the song name displayed. I'm curious as to why you were getting the album name twice. Do songs on those albums have the song artist set? I only use the album artist tag for a small number of my albums (those where some songs are collaborations), and have correct album name, artist name displayed for all albums. |
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#8 |
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MVP
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Hello London Calling
Posts: 1,787
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For some reason some of the compilation albums have the artist as the album name??
I just re-ran get track names and that seems to have fixed it to the correct info. Very odd because I always get track info on any import, and never change it after. |
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#9 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Triple-A Player
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 107
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Thanks! I didn't notice this. Very useful. But it appears that the tag is in fact in the file itself (MP3s anyway). From a before and after analysis, I've observed that it uses the ID3v2 "TPE2" (Band/orchestra/accompaniment) frame. Last edited by stevebr; 09-14-2006 at 12:57 PM. Reason: accurately label the orchestra ID3 frame |
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#10 |
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Triple-A Player
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 107
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I've also just noticed that the Album Artist tag fixes improper sorting of albums with identical titles ("Greatest Hits," for example) when sorting by album in list, album, and cover flow views.
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#11 |
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Triple-A Player
Join Date: Jan 2006
Posts: 86
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while Album Artist is one way of fixing the multiple cover view, it is a lengthy process if you have 30,000 songs, so is there really no way at all to tell it to group any songs that have the same Album Name. This ,to me at least, seems like a very obvious function that i hoped wasn't overlooked by apple.
ps. Also wondering , if selecting my entire Library and setting Compilation to Yes in the get info for the whole library would do it, and make each Album a compilation, or if it would just screw up the library and make everything like one album ..ha, hopefully some1 has tried this... thanks! Last edited by cwk1234; 09-16-2006 at 05:59 AM. |
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#12 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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All Star
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 726
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You only really need to do it for problematic albums (albums of the same name by different artists, non-compilation albums with artist collaborations, etc.). As you mention, it seems odd that albums are not automatically grouped by title AND artist. This would at least fix the "Greatest Hits" problem.
I think the following would happen: - The albums would still remain different, but would be moved to the "Compilations" folder, rather than the various artist folders (assuming that you have "Keep iTunes Music Library Organised" enabled). - It would not fix the problem, since it would assume that all albums with the same name were the same compilation (e.g. one big Greatest Hits album) |
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#13 |
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Registered User
Join Date: Sep 2008
Posts: 1
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If you have multiple albums by the same artist, you could shift+click all their songs and give the songs the same album artist.
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#14 |
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Guest
Posts: n/a
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Hi,
I have three albums. Dr. Hook - Greatest Hits Queen - Greatest Hits Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits I have name the album artists respectively and the albums as Greatest Hits, however on my Ipod and Iphone, they are all mixed up together under each and everyone of these albums. Any suggestions, other than naming the albums with the artist and title? Thanks |
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