Solving Issues with Multiple Artists on Track in Itunes

Solving Issues with Multiple Artists on Track in Itunes
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What Has Apple Done About Issues with Multiple Artists on Single Tracks in iTunes?

What are you to do if more than 40 million people use the product that you make and there is a crucial feature that a lot of people keep asking for? By the numbers that are available on iLounge more less than .01% of the people who use iTunes need a feature to sort and tag multiple artists on the same track.

However, Apple has been slow to respond with a feature that will help you manage multiple artists on the same track and be able to sort by artists in the same way you do for single artists.

Case in point, if there is a song that has been sung by Godsmack and has Santana on the backup guitars (yea, like that would ever happen!) you would end up labeling the artist as Godsmack, Santana and if you use the iTunes column browser to sort all songs by Santana, then you would find that the song which he has featured in won’t show up. The same would be the case if you were looking for all Godsmack tracks in your iTunes album. Quite a quandary it puts us audiophiles in…

There are however a couple of ways in which you can go ahead and sort out the problem without letting this bother you too much. The first way you can solve this happens to be by using Compilation Albums where you’d be able to attribute the same sing to both artists separately. However, using this method you will not be able to sort by both album and artist which makes the whole process seem quite pointless.

1+1=3

If you sort the tracks by album and then put in Godsmack in the iTunes search filed located at the top right corner of your iTunes window, you’ll be able to get rid of your problem. However, you can use this method to browse by artists which can be confusing as well.

There is however a third way but it will require a little bit of elbow grease to get working for all of your tracks that feature multipole artists and have songs that feature other artists. You can fill up the “Album Artist” field for the song if you select the song, then right click on it to go to the “Info” pane. Once there you go ahead and fill up the Artist as you normally would and then fill up Album Artist. This is best explained with the following example drawing from our Godsmack album featuring Santana’s guitars.

Have a look at the iTunes Listing Albums article for more info.

What Steps to Follow?

1. Right click on the track that you would like to add multiple artists for.

2. Click on the Get Info option in the drop down list.

3. In the Info pane click on Album Artist and type in “Godsmack”.

4. Then go to the Artist filed below that one and type in “Santana”.

5. Click Save and you’re ready to rock!

Image: Apple.com