I think the best approach is:
Album Artist=Johnny Cash
Artist=Johnny Cash
Artist=Flea
This way you *should* see all track artists displayed when displaying artists
relating to the track.
The Album Artist will be used when displaying the artist relating to the album
(eg. Browse Artists, Browse Albums).
>2) Conolsolidating Artist Names
>some use AlbumArtist to show a consistent name where a band/artist has
>used a variety of names over time. The 'correct' names is kept in Track Artist
This is what I use BAND for.
I always use Artist names for the contributors on a track. So eg, I'd split
the guest artists out into separate artist names, removing "and", "feat.", etc.
That gives a consistent approach for searching for an artist and listing all
albums/songs relating to that artist.
I then put any additional aliases in the BAND tag. It's possible to change SBS
to show BAND (if present) instead of a list of artists when in album context,
via "Settings > My Music > List albums by band". If this is selected, SBS will
show Album Artist(s), otherwise Band(s), otherwise Artist(s). Nb. you can have
multiples of any artist role.
So, for example, I have:
ARTIST=Jimmy Page
ARTIST=Robert Plant
BAND=Page & Plant
and the album would still be listed as being by "Page & Plant", but I could
still find it if I browsed to albums by Jimmy Page, or by Robert Plant.
I also list BAND artists in the Browse Artists list, but they could be hidden
from the list via "Settings > My Music > Band/Orchestra checkbox".
If all songs are by the same set of Artist(s) and Band(s), then I don't bother
with an Album Artist tag (it would be another instance of the artist name
reported on the album or song details page that's not needed) otherwise if
there is a guest artist, eg. John Paul Jones on one track, then I would also
set ALBUMARTIST=Page & Plant.
>3) Various Artists
>some use AlbumArtist to provide granularity for compilations
>e.g.
>AlbumArtist="Various - Sixties"
>AlbumArtist="Various - Seventies"
>for each track, should only see Track Artists.
>
That would be weird, and I wouldn't recommend it. If categorisation is
required like this, then I'd add additional genre tags, and browse by genre.
Adding categorisations as album artist tags would be a lottery as to what one
was used for sorting in the Browse Albums list, for example. i.e. such an
album would be listed under one album artist, and which one would it choose?
People are more likely to want to see a real artist listed after the album name
"<album> by <artist>", and thus I'd keep to having one album artist tag,
whereas it is quite common to have multiple genres, and they are already used
for categorising albums.
Another reason would be for selecting categories to include in mixes. You
could have a random mix of "Various - Sixties" if it is a genre, but not if you
categorise in album artist tags.
Phil
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