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Trending Lyricist I
October 23, 2024
Answered

All songs in an album listed as separate albums

  • October 23, 2024
  • 15 replies
  • 682 views

I have a lot of compilation albums.  When I go to pick out an album, every compilation album lists each song as an album!  This makes browsing by album impractical.  Please fix this.  I have seen in other postings that this is a known problem, but it is not scheduled to be fixed!  Please elevate the importance of fixing this and get it on the list.

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Best answer by Ken_Griffiths

I have a lot of compilation albums.  When I go to pick out an album, every compilation album lists each song as an album!  This makes browsing by album impractical.  Please fix this.  I have seen in other postings that this is a known problem, but it is not scheduled to be fixed!  Please elevate the importance of fixing this and get it on the list.

This was an old issue with the new Sonos App, but it’s been fixed and should now be working correctly - have you checked for any ‘firmware’ updates in the Sonos App to ensure your devices are using the latest update?

15 replies

Stuart_W
World-Class Superstar
October 30, 2024

With those still having a problem, have you re-indexed your library since the firmware update?



Yes. I used to schedule the index but it stopped working some time ago. Now whenever I change anything on any of my music files I re-index.

 

I’ll have a test of  MoPac’s suggestion.

 

Arc + Sub (Gen 1) + 2 x Play 1/ Stereo Play 3s/ Era 100 Stereo in Kitchen, One Stereo in Bedroom, Play 1 stereo pair in Study, Play 1in Bathroom, Sonos Move 2
Stuart_W
World-Class Superstar
October 30, 2024

 Make sure the Album Artist tag for that album is something like Various Artists.  The Track Artist tag as composer is fine.

Ok. So I had a look at that. The Album Artist tag on that particular album was BLANK and when I change it to “Smell My Farts” (Yes I'm a 59 year old child!) then it works

When I change the Album Artist tag to SPACE then I get this

That’s better than multiple albums but would rather the album name be listed.

I use Metadatics to tag my music files. I know I can export a report and then should be able to see which albums I have the Compilation tag set and then on those I’ll update the tags For Track vs Album Artist.

Am I like to see any other issues here? I always want to listen to an entire album so if I can’t remember the name of the album I’ll locate it by Artist - What I’ve had recently is doing that will show ONLY those Track Artists on any particular album and then you can’t show the whole album like you used to be able to. Am reluctant to undertake a major update of tags if it creates other problems

Arc + Sub (Gen 1) + 2 x Play 1/ Stereo Play 3s/ Era 100 Stereo in Kitchen, One Stereo in Bedroom, Play 1 stereo pair in Study, Play 1in Bathroom, Sonos Move 2
Stuart_W
World-Class Superstar
November 2, 2024

If anybody likes messing with data and would also enjoy snooping on my music/audio taste here is a Google sheets export of all my tracks available and indexed on Sonos residing on my NAS.

 

I’ve deleted many of the columns I don’t think are relevant and sorted by Artist, Album, Track Number as far as I think I need to.

I went into the desktop Sonos App and navigated to Music Library - Albums and then scrolled the entire way through the list. In the Google Sheet I’ve filled the column A (Album) in red if Sonos has duplicated the album (Well it hasn’t duplicated it as such as each row contains a different track).

I was hoping it would be really obvious what logic dictates which albums display this unwanted (by me!) behaviour but I’m not seeing it. I would say that I think the list is better (possibly a lot better) than it was in that fewer albums are now showing as multiple records. I wouldn't mind so much if each of these records were actually just the same WHOLE album repeated so I could play the whole album but they aren’t and they also aren’t in track order.

Things I note in the data:-

 

All duplicate records = All have PARTOFACOMPILATION as “1” and all have COMPILATION as BLANK

However the reverse of those isn’t true so can’t just remove those flags

 

So if you have time, skill and the inclination anybody fancy taking a butcher’s?

 

Many thanks in advance

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AL7maDHlxQ8DOFNLCsJrbTrbx57le3yI-BLzYjsVtW8/edit?usp=sharing

Arc + Sub (Gen 1) + 2 x Play 1/ Stereo Play 3s/ Era 100 Stereo in Kitchen, One Stereo in Bedroom, Play 1 stereo pair in Study, Play 1in Bathroom, Sonos Move 2
Enthusiast II
November 2, 2024

So, it seems that the latest versions now group compilations correctly if the Album Artist is set to something like “Various Artists”, but…

It completely ignores the “Part of a compilation” tag. See screen shot below:

 

 

This used to work fine. Is it possible to have this feature reinstated please?

 

Thanks

Stuart_W
World-Class Superstar
November 5, 2024

I’ve gone through and updated all my albums so when I scroll through via Music Library - Albums I’m only seeing a single record for a single physical album (remember those!).

I think the critical thing I’ve found is that if an album is NOT marked as part of a compilation then if a track artist changes a new record is listed for that Album Name - This foxes the problem of Albums with different artists but the same name (Eg I have an Album named “Forever” by The Spice Girls and ANOTHER by the same name from Aled Jones) being combined into a single record. 
The problem with this logic is how to categorise albums by a single artist (or band) where there are collaborations - If the collaborative artist(s) is listed as Track Artist then Sonos sees that as a separate album if PARTOFCOMPILATION is left Blank. This can be fixed one of two ways - 1) Mark All track artists as the releasing artist but then you lose the information of the collaborator or 2) Mark album as PARTOFCOMPLIATION and note Album Artist as “Various Artists”.

I know this whole logic is really tricky especially for classical works. I still haven’t fully adopted a consistent approach - for instance I may acquire a version of Elgar’s Cello Concerto because Du Pre recorded it, or Kanneh-Mason so I may record the track artist in that instance as the soloist or sometimes it’s the composer. This is the main reason why I’m focused on the ALBUM - I pretty much always want to listen to an entire album, all the track tracks and in the order in which they were presented when released.

Arc + Sub (Gen 1) + 2 x Play 1/ Stereo Play 3s/ Era 100 Stereo in Kitchen, One Stereo in Bedroom, Play 1 stereo pair in Study, Play 1in Bathroom, Sonos Move 2