Bugzilla – Bug 16362
Now Playing display for compilation albums
Last modified: 2011-04-25 09:18:58 UTC
There's an inconsistency across the various UI's for displaying the Now Playing artist information for a compilation album (or an album with an album artist present, but it looks especially weird and noticeable for compilations). If an album is tagged as a compilation, and doesn't have an Album Artist tag, then only the track artist is displayed. This is consistent across all Squeezebox Player types and the WebUI. However, if an album is tagged as a compilation, and also has an Album Artist tag "Various Artists", then the track artist AND the album artist are sometimes displayed, but inconsistently: Squeezebox classic: if the display format contains "Artist", it only displays the track artists, NOT the album artist. SqueezePlay: always displays the Album Artist, and then track artists WebUI: always displays the track artists, and then the album artist.
I don't recall it being like this in previous squeezebox releases. I think it used to show the track artists only. I would suggest that the Squeezebox classic display is the correct way to display artists. i.e. it only ever displays the contributing artist for the track, and not the album artist (whether "Various Artists" has been set automatically, or whether it was tagged as such). i.e. on the Now Playing information, if an album is detected automatically as a compilation or the album is specifically tagged as a compilation, display track artist only. I think SqueezePlay and WebUI should display the same - only display the track artist(s), not the album artist. (Or at a minimum, display track artists and album artist in the same order for a bit more consistently). If playing a single song (eg. random mix), it's frustrating to see the current song displayed as "Waterloo by Various Artists, ABBA". This may be a candidate for the one-browser branch updates?
See bug 15456. Michael did some work in this area recently. > I think SqueezePlay and WebUI should display the same - only display the > track artist(s), not the album artist. (Or at a minimum, display track > artists and album artist in the same order for a bit more consistently). Are you talking about only for compilations, or all albums? I agree that the special 'Various Artists' should be suppressed at the track level. But for non-compilations, such as albums with 'guest' artists, you do want to display both the album artist and all track artists. Ideally album artist first, then track artist, without repeating any in the list.
> Are you talking about only for compilations, or all albums? All albums, generally, but the issue is more annoying for compilations. > I agree that the > special 'Various Artists' should be suppressed at the track level. But for > non-compilations, such as albums with 'guest' artists, you do want to display > both the album artist and all track artists. Ideally album artist first, then > track artist, without repeating any in the list. > No, I don't want to display both album artist and track artist. When playing a track, I want to see contributors for the track. The Album artist is the artist relating to the album. There can be two situations: a) Guests on an album predominantly by another artist b) A Guest artist duetting (contributing) to a song that also includes the album artist. For case (a), I don't want the album artist displayed. That "album artist" doesn't perform on the track. Eg. "War Of The Worlds" is an album by album artist Jeff Wayne. A song on the album is by Justin Hayward. That song is only performed by Justin Hayward, and so I'd not expect Jeff Wayne to be displayed in the context of the song. Other songs on the album are performed by Jeff Wayne, so I'd add him as a track artist as well as album artist. For case (b), I wouldn't need the album artist displayed, because the artist would be a track artist contributer. Eg. "Shiny Happy People" by R.E.M. and Kate Pierson. "R.E.M." is the album artist, but they definitely perform on this song too, so would be added as a track artist also. i.e. total control over the artists displayed in track context, based on track contributor roles. NB. It also includes CONDUCTOR, COMPOSER and ORCHESTRA/BAND in the list of track contributors, but Album Artist should only relate to the display of the album.
what a shock. more fallout from bad design. https://bugs-archive.lyrion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9523
(In reply to comment #4) > what a shock. more fallout from bad design. > I don't think the design is bad. The DB correctly holds the right information in a format that is useable. Classic Squeezebox player UI and Web UI correctly show the right information, it's just presented differently for SqueezePlay players, which is frustrating. > https://bugs-archive.lyrion.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9523 > I don't understand why you refer to that unrelated bug. 9523 is about Browsing compilation albums, whilst this is about displaying the Now Playing information.
i wasn't clear, and i may be talking too broadly here, but i keep seeing issues like this in the forums and in bugzilla. i don't want to derail your bug, but what i mean is that i think there is a fundamental flaw in SBS using ONLY AA tags, if present, as meaning "Artist" in the DB. this is a big problem for users who have AA tags on everything, which includes WMP and winamp, among others. (the solution is to map artist tags to a sbs artist field ONLY, and AA tags to a sbs AA field ONLY) that issue is further compounded by bugs like 9523 which exist b/c SBS does not seem to understand the reality of the marketplace out there. jmho. in any case, SP has been getting this wrong for years. see these bugs: bug 10654 bug 10760 bug 11369 plenty more, and gets even more whacky if you start to consider other things like genres and so on.
this bug should add the Keyword: Compilations
see bug 6577 as well
Alan, i thought this might be inside the scope of onebrowser