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?

[Starrcade]

After ripping a test version of the song, I found the flac file on my computer hard drive and right-clicked on it to view the Properties. There was a tab called ID-Tag, which you can see below in my screenshot. Before I ripped, I manually changed the Artist for the track to "INXS feat. Ray Charles" and then I added the Artist Sort tag (since it had disappeared) and manually typed "INXS; Charles, Ray" and then pressed the rip button.

There wasn't an Artists or ArtistsSort option available before ripping, nor did one appear after ripping. I think you are saying I would have to do the additional step of using MusicBrainz Picard to add the plural version of the tags. If I don't do that extra step, then what will happen in most players with the tags I have below? When I view the list of all my artists, will there be one for INXS and another one for Ray Charles (sorted in C) or will he be listed the way it was typed (Charles, Ray instead of Ray Charles), or will the list show an artist for INXS and another artist for "INXS feat. Ray Charles"?




For your questions: Right now, my goal is to put all my CDs on an external hard drive. After that is complete (which may take several months), then I will look into different players to find the best one for me. My phone is currently Android. My computer is Windows. I just want to do everything the correct way and future-proof it as much as I can so I don't have to make a lot of changes later. I feel like I can play the music directly from my master hard drive, or I can copy songs from it onto other sources (another computer, a phone, etc.). I really want to understand how to handle these type of tracks before I press the rip button and what I should be doing or editing, along with what the end result will look in most players. I am eventually going to come across many CDs similar to the Elton John example above. I don't know if my tags are correct nor do I know how they will actually work in most players.

[simbun]

If I don't do that extra step, then what will happen in most players with the tags I have below? When I view the list of all my artists, will there be one for INXS and another one for Ray Charles (sorted in C) or will he be listed the way it was typed (Charles, Ray instead of Ray Charles), or will the list show an artist for INXS and another artist for "INXS feat. Ray Charles"?

Each tagging format has its own standard for storing multivalue tags e.g.

• Vorbis (FLAC, Opus etc)
  • ARTIST: INXS
  • ARTIST: Ray Charles
• ID3v2.3 (an old standard used for MP3)
  • ARTIST: INXS/Ray Charles
• ID3v2.4 (newer standard used for MP3)
  • ARTIST: INXS[NULL]Ray Charles

Some servers/players allow splitting on other delimiters (so the artist tag - according to the spec - wouldn't be multivalue, instead it would be a single string e.g. 'INXS\\Ray Charles'), but these are the exception and I wouldn't recommended using that appraoch, so I'm ignoring that for now.

Using your example:
Artist: INXS feat. Ray Charles
Artistsort: INXS; Charles, Ray

The artist index would contain:
INXS feat. Ray Charles
because there's only one artist value.

The sort value (artistsort) is used to apply a custom sort order to the artist (e.g. 'Ray Charles' should be sorted by 'Charles, Ray') so there must be a 1-1 relationship between the Artist and Artistsort tags. Not all servers/players use the sort tag, but it's definitely worth keeping.

I really want to understand how to handle these type of tracks before I press the rip button and what I should be doing or editing, along with what the end result will look in most players. I am eventually going to come across many CDs similar to the Elton John example above. I don't know if my tags are correct nor do I know how they will actually work in most players.

The most compatible approach is to multivalue tags e.g. "INXS; Ray Charles" instead of "INXS feat. Ray Charles".

[Starrcade]

I installed the MusicBee player to test how some of my FLAC songs look and sort (I doubt I will actually use MusicBee in the future, but it was one of the few players with decent ratings that I could quickly install on an old laptop for free to test what the songs and sorting look like).

When I viewed the artists, I had the following show up (in this order):
The Cure
Garbage
INXS
INXS feat. Ray Charles
Natalie Merchant

I was surprised to see "INXS feat. Ray Charles" as an artist. But I don't think I really understand how sorting tags work, and I admit that I do not know what I am doing and I don't understand how everything works.


QUESTION 1:

For my example, is it possible to get the following result (and what would I need to do)?
(1) When playing the one song, the player shows the song title and the artist is "INXS feat. Ray Charles"
(2) When I look at all my artists, I see "Ray Charles" (sorted as C) and "INXS" (sorted as I).
(3) If I click on either one of those 2 artists, the song shows up as a song by that artist (along with any other songs by that artist).
(4) The name "INXS feat. Ray Charles" does not show up when I look at all my artists. This "name" only displays when I play the song or look at the track.


QUESTION 2:

Going back to the Elton John example, I was wondering how do the artist listings look? If you click on Artists in the player, do you see individual listings for:
Gorillaz
Elton John
Dua Lipa
Charlie Puth
Surfaces
Young Thug
Or do you see individual listings for "Elton John & Dua Lipa" and "Surfaces feat. Elton John" etc?

I'm also curious, what player was used for that screenshot? It looks nice visually.

[simbun]

When I viewed the artists, I had the following show up (in this order):
The Cure
Garbage
INXS
INXS feat. Ray Charles
Natalie Merchant

I was surprised to see "INXS feat. Ray Charles" as an artist. But I don't think I really understand how sorting tags work, and I admit that I do not know what I am doing and I don't understand how everything works.

I don't use MusicBee but you must have an (album)artist tag containing "INXS feat. Ray Charles".

With regards the sorting:

Artist                   ArtistSort (sortedby)
------------------------------------------------
The Cure                 Cure, The
Garbage                  Garbage
INXS                     INXS
INXS feat. Ray Charles   INXS feat. Ray Charles?
Natalie Merchant         Merchant, Natalie

As you can see, artist is used for display purposes whilst artistsort is used for sorting (C > G >I > M).

QUESTION 1:

For my example, is it possible to get the following result (and what would I need to do)?
(1) When playing the one song, the player shows the song title and the artist is "INXS feat. Ray Charles"
(2) When I look at all my artists, I see "Ray Charles" (sorted as C) and "INXS" (sorted as I).
(3) If I click on either one of those 2 artists, the song shows up as a song by that artist (along with any other songs by that artist).
(4) The name "INXS feat. Ray Charles" does not show up when I look at all my artists. This "name" only displays when I play the song or look at the track.

I don't know if you can in MusicBee, but all of this is possible with Lightweight Music Server and Symfonium. It might be possible with Jellyfin or Emby but their metadata support is limited so I don't know off the top of my head.

QUESTION 2:
Going back to the Elton John example, I was wondering how do the artist listings look? If you click on Artists in the player, do you see individual listings for:
Gorillaz
Elton John
Dua Lipa
Charlie Puth
Surfaces
Young Thug
Or do you see individual listings for "Elton John & Dua Lipa" and "Surfaces feat. Elton John" etc?

Using my setup above (and the correct tagging) you'd see the individual artists listed, not the collaborations.

I'm also curious, what player was used for that screenshot? It looks nice visually.

It's a beautiful app and so configurable; works with many different providers too!

Showing different release types and the collation of albums across name changes i.e. Jaÿ-Z -> JAY-Z -> Jay-Z -> JAY Z.



This is the Now Playing screen. Clicking on "Gorillaz feat. Elton John and 6LACK" brings up a list of the individual artists that will take you to their artist page (as above).

[simbun]

If the docker requirement hasn't put you off, I could send you a small music collection (without audio to keep things small) for test purposes.

[Starrcade]

All of my AlbumArtist tags are correct:

AlbumArtist	Artist	ArtistSort
The Cure	The Cure	Cure, The
Garbage	Garbage	Garbage
INXS	INXS	INXS
INXS	INXS feat. Ray Charles	INXS; Charles, Ray
Natalie Merchant	Natalie Merchant	Merchant, Natalie

Is that the type of tags you would typically do? I am guessing the MusicBee software is using the Artist tag to create a new artist instead of the ArtistSort tag.

I don't like the MusicBee layout so I have no plans to use it in the future. I only used it to test what some files might look like.

That Symfonium app is beautiful. I am going to have to look into it some more. I just realized that I can put my music on the cloud and play it from there. I thought I would have to drag music files onto my phone or connect it to my computer using bluetooth. So that opens up things for me even more after ripping. I see it even gives you an artist profile which is nice. Looks like it breaks down music into albums and EPs (and I'm guessing CD Singles?).. are you tagging as Album and EP or does it know how to separate automatically?

If the docker requirement hasn't put you off, I could send you a small music collection (without audio to keep things small) for test purposes.

What is the docker requirement? I didn't see that mentioned in your last message. But yes, I would really appreciate some test files to try. Thank you.