>If this is the case, it feels like setting ALBUMARTIST="Various >Artists" should just work, independent of SBS settings. > That's right. If people use Album Artist tags, they will always be used. If there's no compilation tags, they will not appear as compilation albums.
I think there's three types of users: 1. Those that do not have compilation tags or album artist tags at all. 2. Those that use compilation tags and/or album artist tags just when necessary to group songs onto albums. 3. Those that have used album artist tags for everything. For (1), SBS makes albums appear as compilations such that an album with varying artists remains as a single album containing all songs, rathert than splitting into several albums, one per artist, and thus also avoiding problems with multiple albums of the same name all being grouped into a single uber album (aka the "Greatest Hits" issue that plagued old SBS releases). For (2) and (3), SBS doesn't do anything special. iTunes uses the same logic, supporting the same types of user tagging regimes. >All the discussions regarding various artists and compilations makes me >feel that something is wrong ? > No, I think all types of users are catered for. The only sticking point appears to be (correct me if I am wrong) when type (3) have used Album Artist = Various Artists. As they do not have a compilation tag, the albums are not displayed in the Artists > Various Artists list because the fudged-in mechanism of browsing compilations is overriding that normal artist with a special artist record. As explained, a workaround is easy, but really it would be good to remove the special brower handling of "Various Artists" that represents all compilation albums (i.e. 0 records for this user type) entry at the top of artists lists, and create a dedicated Browse Compilations mode. Another potential fix for this issue is perhaps in the display logic - don't display a special "Various Artists" entry at the top fo Artists list, if there are 0 albums. (I initially thought this was the case, but as type 3 users seem to indicate a problem, I guess the entry is permanently displayed?) >Or is it just that MrSinatra has opposite ideas compared to everyone else ? > Not opposite ideas as such - just a different type of user (type 3 above). >I'm pretty interested in this as a new third party solution a few of us >are working on might result in that you get a lot of extra information >about contributors on a track. > Extra information stored per track is fine; should not affect album contextual information at all. >I think the main issue at the moment is to make system work good for >people with a lot of compilation albums that mainly listens to albums. >For these people, the "Various Artists" album list gets too long and >it's hard to find things and they probably don't want all artists in >the main artists list because that will make that too long. > I have quite a lot of compilations (~150, about 4 pages in WebUI). Browsing by Artist > Various Artists (which I think is fairly naff), gets me to a list of compilation albums, from which I can order in various ways (album artist, year, album name, genre). Of course, you can get to partial list content from browsing in a different way, eg. Genres > Folk Rock > Various Artists would give a much smaller list of compilations. I've never had problems browsing for a compilation, there's different ways to go about doing it. More could definitely be done to improve it, esp. from player UI's. I think that if a user has a large collection of compilations, and wants to browse the set of compilations, it's a good idea to use the compilation tagging facility, rather than depend on just album artist names. i.e. there is an added benefit. e.g. if some have album artist "Soundtrack", some "Various Artists", and some remix artists, such as "BT", "UNKLE", etc, it's hard to get a list of compilation albums without a compilation tag indicator. One can find all soundtracks, or all various artists, but not all compilations. Maybe people don't want to, but it's an added benefit that some might like to use. >Maybe we need a "Artists/Various Artists" menu where you have to select >a individual artist first and then are able to select album ? > >Basically having a structure like: >Artists/Various Artists/<artist>/<album> >Instead of the current model: >Artists/Various Artists/<album> > Perhaps, but can't you just browse e.g. "Artists > UNKLE" to see albums by that "artist", some of which may be compilations? i.e. if you want to see all compilations browse to a list of all compilations. If you want to see work by an artist browse to that artist. e.g I have declared a compilation with Album Artist=UNKLE. I can browse all compilations, and see that album. I can sort the list of compilations in different way, or find sub-sets, via other hierarchies, such as only Rock compilations. OR I can browse artist UNKLE, and see all of their albums, including involvement on this compilation album. Phil _______________________________________________ ripping mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/ripping
