Yeah, and as I mentioned in another thread, under the current system albums with identical names are identified as the same album. So if you happen to have “Greatest Hits” by, say, Eagles, and “Greatest Hits” by Rage Against the Machine, those two would be playing as a mix if accessed through Album playback. Not cool. The solution theoretically could be - playing by Artist -> Album, but if you have dozens of VA compilations (like I do), the artists list is just way too long to scroll through. 
Album Artist browsing would be very useful. I have a lot of compilations and it would be really nice to scroll through an Album Artist list to “Various Artists” to be able to see them all. Right now you have to hunt though the Album list, which is a big PITA. Album Artist is also useful for tributes, soundtracks and classical albums. And as someone mentioned, the Album Artist value can always be assumed from the Artist tag (this is how Winamp and most other decent players work), so you don’t have to worry about Album Artist not being populated.
At least I can work around it now with folder browsing since my folders are organized by Album Artist\Album, but it would be nice to have it as one of the standard browse lists.
Now that I’ve heard the “Various Artists” example, I agree…as long as it would still use Artist & Album as it currently does (when there is no album artist). The iPod allows you to tag any group of songs as a compilation; the Sansa should have some way of doing this, too.
@bdb wrote:
Now that I’ve heard the “Various Artists” example, I agree…as long as it would still use Artist & Album as it currently does (when there is no album artist). The iPod allows you to tag any group of songs as a compilation; the Sansa should have some way of doing this, too.
If an Album Artist browse was implemented, it would have to be in addition to the normal Artist browse. Each method has benefits and limitation. Ideally you’d have both options.
Here’s a few examples of Album Artist versus track Artist tags:
- Normal single artist album
- Album Artist = Artist
- Album Artist browse would only show albums by that artist
- Artist browse would show any album on which the artist appears (including compilations, etc).
- Compilation
- Album Artist = “Various Artists”
- Artist = artist who performed each track (each track could be a different artist)
- Album Artist browse would let you find all your comps under Various Artists
- Tribute
- Album Artist = the artist to whom the tribute is dedicated
- Artist = artist who performed each track (each track could be a different artist)
- Album Artist browse would include both the artist’s own albums and any tributes to that artist
- Classical
- Album Artist = original composer
- Artist = conductor/orchestra/etc who performed the track
- Album Artist browse would let you find all works by composer (Bach, Motzart, etc.)
- Artist browse would let you find all performances by a given conductor/orchestra/etc
