Suggestion for Artist browsing

@justme wrote:


@tapeworm wrote:


@justme wrote:

Currently it works like this:

Artist -> Album -> (Song list)

 

I think it should be splitted into two, like this:

Album artist -> Album -> (Song list)

Artist -> (Song list)

 

What do you think? It seems more logical to me. IIRC, this has been discussed before, but was somehow forgotten.

One problem: there’s no standard tag field for album artist, most taggers use “BAND”, foobar2000 uses “ALBUM ARTIST”, some files don’t even have an album artist tag.

 

Any idea?

Message Edited by justme on 04-14-2009 12:58 PM


 

Yes. Leave it as it is. There’s nothing wrong with it.


Not helpful, at all. Anyone else?

Less is more in this case. I agree with Tape. What may make things better is customizable options so that it can stay the same or you can eliminate the album name part of the orginizational structure.

@justme wrote:


@tapeworm wrote:


@justme wrote:

Currently it works like this:

Artist -> Album -> (Song list)

 

I think it should be splitted into two, like this:

Album artist -> Album -> (Song list)

Artist -> (Song list)

 

What do you think? It seems more logical to me. IIRC, this has been discussed before, but was somehow forgotten.

One problem: there’s no standard tag field for album artist, most taggers use “BAND”, foobar2000 uses “ALBUM ARTIST”, some files don’t even have an album artist tag.

 

Any idea?

Message Edited by justme on 04-14-2009 12:58 PM


 

Yes. Leave it as it is. There’s nothing wrong with it.


Not helpful, at all. Anyone else?

Use folder browsing?

Thanks for your ideas. I agree it works pretty well as it is. And yes, the Artist -> (Song List) is not very useful.

Perhaps I should have made it clearer, my main suggestion is the Album Artist -> Album -> (Song List) thing. The current setting makes my Artist list so unreasonably long that browsing it is a PITA, and not right, too. For example: consider an album like this:

Track 1      ALBUM ARTIST: A       ARTIST: A

Track 2      ALBUM ARTIST: A       ARTIST: A feat. B

You know what I mean, right? I believe I’m not the only one who has encountered this problem.

Message Edited by justme on 04-14-2009 09:43 PM

@justme wrote:

Thanks for your ideas. I agree it works pretty well as it is. And yes, the Artist -> (Song List) is not very useful.

Perhaps I should have made it clearer, my main suggestion is the Album Artist -> Album -> (Song List) thing. The current setting makes my Artist list so unreasonably long that browsing it is a PITA, and not right, too. For example: consider an album like this:

 

Track 1      ALBUM ARTIST: A       ARTIST: A

Track 2      ALBUM ARTIST: A       ARTIST: A feat. B

 

You know what I mean, right? I believe I’m not the only one who has encountered this problem.

I think I’m getting you…and seriously, try the folder nav. I have a bunch of Led Zeppelin that are old rips that show all the band members, but going into folder nav, there is just a Led Zeppelin folder, with individual albums folders in it.

Yes, folder browsing should work, but it would mean people who prefer tag browsing, and spent hours tagging their library, have to live with this problem, while in fact it can be fixed. Doesn’t sound cool to me :wink:

@justme wrote:

 

Yes, folder browsing should work, but it would mean people who prefer tag browsing, and spent hours tagging their library, have to live with this problem, while in fact it can be fixed. Doesn’t sound cool to me :wink:

I hear ya. I’ve never spent the hours tagging…always relied on either WMP’s or MediaMonkey’s taggers. My Zep rips were a gift, and I have not bothered to edit their tags…call me lazy if you wish :smiley:

Oh please :stuck_out_tongue:, that’s not the point here! How about the “prefer” part? I actually prefer the database approach of tag browsing.

Besides, can anybody tell me why this SHOULDN’T be implemented? No, not the “I’m used to it” stuff. When something changes for the better, a little change in habits would do no harm.

oh yeah please fix it. it’s very tedious and confusing if you have a artist with some songs but a lot of different albums.

"Album Artist -> Album -> (Song List)"

I think this would be just fine as long as you had PLAY ALL at the top of every menu.

ARTIST

> Play All

> Album

(Choose an album)

>Play All

>Track List

Of course, Play All is always useful! However,

Peregrine wrote: 

(Choose an album)

>Play All

>Track List

This would be unnecessary, because once you get to the track list, it will “play all” anyway :slight_smile:

The reason for my other suggestion (Artist -> Song List) is when you want to browse by the actual artist of the song, not its album artist.

I don’t think Album Artists is filled in by most rippers, so it would typically require manual fixes by users. That renders its basically useless.

Dude “justme” CHILL OUT, it’s not the end of the world

@bdb: it can be solved by assuming album artist from other tags, e.g, read it in the following order: ALBUM ARTIST -> BAND -> ARTIST… You may argue that will bring us back to where we are now, but at least people who need album artist browsing have a solution.

@jfdnkasparek: I’m not overexcited, I’m already happy with the Fuze, just a suggestion I think will improve it. Anyway, looks like few people really care about it. So, people can just go ahead and ask for wallpapers, games, etc., because it’s the end of the world to them. I’m OK with that :wink:

Message Edited by justme on 04-15-2009 07:51 PM

I think this suggestion is very good and it is implemented in many other players so your problem with it???

I agree with this suggestion.  Should be pretty easy to implement and would be very convenient for a lot of us.

Good idea and it gets my support. 

I second that suggestion!! Album artist can be very useful, for soundtracks mostly. Take any Tarantino movie. Good musics, with artists not very well known… It’s easier to find Tarantino in the artist list, specially if you want to listen to Kill Bill vol.1 and Kill Bill vol.2 in a row!

That works also for Disney discs (I have one with all famous songs: Cinderella, Lion King…). I have the author of every track, and Walt Disney as the album artist.

Yes, sure, Easytag, on linux, doesn’t fill this tag, but Windows Media Player does.

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. :frowning:

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