Tagging artists who perform under varying artist names

[Zoltan]

There are certain artists like Neil Young and Frank Zappa who have various albums where their unadorned name isn't, strictly speaking, the artist for the albums in question. For example, some of Neil's albums are credited to Neil Young and Crazy Horse, and some of Frank Zappa's to The Mothers Of Invention or to Frank Zappa and the Mothers.

However, I think it is natural to expect the different variations of an artist to be grouped under the main artist name. My question is: what is the best way to capture this in the tags (particularly for Squeezebox consumption of course)? Should it be, say, Neil Young is Artist and Neil Young and Crazy Horse the Album Artist, or vice versa?

I wish I had asked this question a while ago as I have just tended to accept what my ripping software has decided and I'm not sure things are all that consistent at the moment for this sort of artists.

[garym]

There are certain artists like Neil Young and Frank Zappa who have various albums where their unadorned name isn't, strictly speaking, the artist for the albums in question. For example, some of Neil's albums are credited to Neil Young and Crazy Horse, and some of Frank Zappa's to The Mothers Of Invention or to Frank Zappa and the Mothers.

However, I think it is natural to expect the different variations of an artist to be grouped under the main artist name. My question is: what is the best way to capture this in the tags (particularly for Squeezebox consumption of course)? Should it be, say, Neil Young is Artist and Neil Young and Crazy Horse the Album Artist, or vice versa?

I wish I had asked this question a while ago as I have just tended to accept what my ripping software has decided and I'm not sure things are all that consistent at the moment for this sort of artists.

I use actual artist for ARTIST tag (e.g., Sir Douglas Quintet, Texas Tornados, Wayne Douglas, Doug Sahm & Band, The Masked Men, etc.) and then for all these I use ALBUM ARTIST as "Doug Sahm"

mp3tag is a useful tag editor that can automatically convert things from artist to album artist and vice versa based on a formatting command. So you can easily fix all this in a batch sort of way.

[MeSue]

I do the same as garym, but sometimes I also use the band tag. For example:
Artist - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
AlbumArtist - Tom Petty
Band - The Heartbreakers


(Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk. Please pardon any typos!)

[Mnyb]

I did not think much of it until lately , sometimes I've done artist/album artists .

Or album artist , then multiple artists tags if it is an collaboration .

Or just using the artist " as is " but then also added a sort tag .
Sometimes I've done sort tags anyway

So I sort Grinderman Nick Cave and " "Nick Cave and the bad seeds" under Nick Cave.

Some tag inconsistencies I leave to my retirement

[vagskal]

I use actual artist for ARTIST tag (e.g., Sir Douglas Quintet, Texas Tornados, Wayne Douglas, Doug Sahm & Band, The Masked Men, etc.) and then for all these I use ALBUM ARTIST as "Doug Sahm"

+1

This way all related albums are in one place in the artist list (when only Album Artists are shown). For songs on various artist albums I use in the artist tag the actual name of the performer of the song in combination with the name I have chosen for Album Artist for the artist. This way those songs show up when I select the album artist in the artist list (which I like but others may not). And I do the same on albums with two artists - Nick Cave & Warren Ellis as Album Artist and Nick Cave & Warren Ellis; Nick Cave; Warren Ellis as Artist.

[aubuti]

I use actual artist for ARTIST tag (e.g., Sir Douglas Quintet, Texas Tornados, Wayne Douglas, Doug Sahm & Band, The Masked Men, etc.) and then for all these I use ALBUM ARTIST as "Doug Sahm"

mp3tag is a useful tag editor that can automatically convert things from artist to album artist and vice versa based on a formatting command. So you can easily fix all this in a batch sort of way.

same here

[Zoltan]

Thanks all. There seems to be a good consensus here so I'll go with that. And thanks for the mp3tag tip - I'll look into that.

[Mycenius]

Hi All,

New here, but thought I'd quickly chip in I've been following a similar logic too, with Album Artist being the name as it appears on the album cove, and Artist having all the individual names to cross populate...

Another good example is NZ band Shihad who changed name to Pacifier after 9/11 (as theft had just got into the US and were worried about it sounding like Jihad) and then changed back to Shihad about 2005. So I put the correct one for each particular album in Album Artist but put both in the Artist field...

BTW - on a related note I've just changed to a VortexBox Server, but now have an odd issue with these multiple names not displaying in iPeng and similar, they work for grouping the music in he library but only one name (the first in list) ever displays in the album & track info? I posted in LMS section but maybe should have posted here under tagging: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showpost.php?p=707961

[vagskal]

I've just changed to a VortexBox Server, but now have an odd issue with these multiple names not displaying in iPeng and similar, they work for grouping the music in he library but only one name (the first in list) ever displays in the album & track info? I posted in LMS section but maybe should have posted here under tagging: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showpost.php?p=707961

iPeng only shows one artist. That is an irritating limitation. The developer (Pippin) is aware of the issue. Squeezepad and the Logitech app show all artists.

[Mycenius]

iPeng only shows one artist. That is an irritating limitation. The developer (Pippin) is aware of the issue. Squeezepad and the Logitech app show all artists.

Oh, hmmm... Thanks Vagskal. I didn't realise that. I've been using iPeng for 18 months but only noticed it last few weeks after I changed source to my VortexBox server from my Windows 7 PC...