Sorting for Multiple Artists

[Starrcade]

I have a song on an INXS cd that is a duet with Ray Charles. The Artist name for the song was INXS, so I changed the Artist for the song to "INXS feat. Ray Charles" and all my sort tags in my profile disappeared. I added the sort tags again, and the Artist Sort tag said "INXS feat. Ray Charles." I thought the software would recognize "feat." and create tags for each artist.

Note: I have "Detect Multi artists from '&', 'ft.' & 'feat.'" selected in the Options, but it isn't making tags for each artist, or I don't understand what this option really does. What is it supposed to do?

What is the correct way to make artist sort tags when you have a song with 2 artists? The sort tags should be for "INXS" and "Charles, Ray." I don't know how people normally handle this, or what is the correct method/steps.

[Spoon]

"Detect Multi artists from '&', 'ft.' & 'feat.'"

When reading from the internet it will correctly enter the artist names, in this instance if manually entering you should put:

INXS; Ray Charles

[simbun]

What is the correct way to make artist sort tags when you have a song with 2 artists? The sort tags should be for "INXS" and "Charles, Ray." I don't know how people normally handle this, or what is the correct method/steps.

For greater compatibility I would stick with:
Artist: INXS; Ray Charles
ArtistSort: INXS; Charles, Ray

But if you're willing to put in the work there are other options (would require an additional tagging step):
Artist: Elton John, Young Thug & Nicki Minaj
Artists: Elton John; Young Thug; Nicki Minaj
ArtistsSort: John, Elton; Young Thug; Minaj, Nicki

[Starrcade]

But if you're willing to put in the work there are other options (would require an additional tagging step):
Artist: Elton John, Young Thug & Nicki Minaj
Artists: Elton John; Young Thug; Nicki Minaj
ArtistsSort: John, Elton; Young Thug; Minaj, Nicki

Forgive me, but I am slightly confused. You have a great example with 3 artists since I have some CDs like that.

(1) What is the additional tagging step? You wrote "Artist" and "Artists" which (which have the same info). I only have Artist and Album Artist. I know Album Artist would be Elton John in your example. And I would type "Elton John, Young Thug & Nicki Minaj" as the track's Artist in the specific row for that one song (if only Elton John or something else showed up as the Artist). But where is the Artists field, and why would it exist (what is the purpose versus the Artist field)?

(2) I only have an "ArtistSort" field. You wrote "ArtistsSort" (plural) - does that exist or was it a typo? If it exists, should I be using both ArtistSort and ArtistsSort for this song, or just the plural one (and where do I find the plural ArtistsSort)?

(3) For the Artist(s)Sort tag: if I do one line separating the 3 with a semi-colon ("John, Elton; Young Thug; Minaj, Nicki"), do different players recognize the 3 artists and display each one? Meaning, do you scroll through your artists and select Young Thug and you see the Elton John song? And then you can scroll through all your artists, select either Elton or Nicki and you will see that song?

I hope that makes sense. I'm sorry for asking many questions. I don't have a player yet. I am about to rip hundreds of CDs and I want to make sure I do it right the first time.

[simbun]

(1) What is the additional tagging step? You wrote "Artist" and "Artists" which (which have the same info)

• Artist is a single string (notice it has '&' in it) that reflects exactly what you'd see on the CD track listing e.g. https://musicbrainz.org/release/a11d...3-e3aecfa1ca09
• ArtistS is a multivalue tag containing one value per artist.
• ArtistSsort is the matching multivalue sort tag.

Artist is used when displaying track listings, and the multivalue tags (ArtistS and ArtistsSort) are used in indexes.

The additional step is that you'd need to run the tracks through MusicBrainz Picard to get the data. As I said, this approach isn't the most compatible, so you would be limiting your server/control point options. What are your requirements for a server, and are you on Android or iOS?