Ok, then given the above, this is what I'd propose:
- SBS, when its scans an album that it determines to be a
compilation, would assign the contributor with the name 'Various
Artists' to the album artist role for the album. It may have to
create this contributor if it doesn't already exist. The lookup would
always be by name and would use the name set in the options for the VA
artist.
- If there's an album with an explicit ALBUMARTIST=Various Artists,
it will end up using the same contributor for its album artist role.
- Don't do anything special to sort this contributor to the top of
the artist list. Allow it to sort at 'V' (or wherever, according to
the name that is set).
- Add a 'Browse Compilations' browse mode (make it optional?) for
those who want it. (Still, this seems very odd to me to have an
entire browse mode for one particular artist. I don't see why it
would be necessary.) In this context, a compilation album is merely
one that has as its album artist the contributor named 'Various
Artists' (or its substitute).
But we're back again to the slightly sticky problem of what happens
when the name 'Various Artists' is changed in the options. What I see
is that it either requires a full rescan, or else (much faster) SBS
would:
- Create a new contributor record with this name, unless one already
exists. SBS has to do this because albums with explicit
ALBUMARTIST=Various Artists tags should not have any other name
substituted for the contributor in the album artist role.
- Take all compilation albums and switch their album artist to the
new contributor. Compilation albums in this context would only those
determined by SBS to be a compilation by COMPILATION=1 or artist
makeup. This would require SBS to keep a compilation=1/0 column for
albums.
The albums.contributor column would also need to be changed for these
albums, so that the sorting of albums by artist would change with the
new name.
This should require just two simple database queries.
- Delete the contributor with the old name only if there are no
longer any contributor roles using it. If it was something like
'Various Artists' then you might still have non-compilation albums
where ALBUMARTIST was set to the string.
Mostly, this seems easy to do. It does away with the 'special'
contributor that is the VA, although one contributor in the
contributors table will still be used by all compilation albums. It
also eliminates the special sorting, so generating an artist list
should be simpler.
Because it's possible to rename the VA, it would have to be determined
which takes precedence, the COMPILATION or the ALBUMARTIST tag. If you
have
ALBUMARTIST=Various Artists
COMPILATION=1
I think you'd want the ALBUMARTIST tag to take precedence.
--
JJZolx
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