Bugzilla – Bug 7836
Can't browse all albums by a following a track artist link
Last modified: 2011-05-18 10:21:23 UTC
If an album has an Album Artist and different contributor artists, the web UI will show the artist links when browsing a song. It works fine for not showing the track artists in the Browse Artist list if that is their only performance. However, it also doesn't allow you to go (following artist link, drilling down by tag) to other albums of that artist if there are any. That seems like a bug to me - it only shows other albums that the track artist has performed as a track artist. It should display the same list as navigating to that artist. I had a look at the link, (eg. http://localhost:9000/Default/browsedb.html?hierarchy=contributor,album,track&level=1&contributor.id=703&contributor.role=TRACKARTIST&player=00%3A04%3A20%3A06%3A38%3A3c) I can see contributor.role=TRACKARTIST in that url, which causes the filtering. Similarly, the album artist link has (contributor.role=ALBUMARTIST) in the link. If you remove that part of the link (eg. so it becomes http://localhost:9000/Default/browsedb.html?hierarchy=contributor,album,track&level=1&contributor.id=703&player=00%3A04%3A20%3A06%3A38%3A3c), then you'll see all albums that the artist has performed on (whether as an album artist, band, track artist, composer, etc). I see no reason for filtering the link to a specific contributor role. I think that's a bug.
Do you see this behaviour in 7.1 only or in 7.0.1 as well? I did change something in this area to fix an issue with the "VA" artist. Would have to fix it in 7.0.1 if I broke it. Would you mind giving 7.0.1 a try? If you're on SVN then "svn switch" might do this quickly.
Someone else was complaining about the problem in 7.0.1 in the discuss forum (in the "Album Artist vs. Band (TPE2) tags" thread). I was suprised, so I tried it out on my server in 7.1 and also confirmed that it wasn't working and thus raised the bug report.
thanks for confirming - I'm still not able to reproduce :-(. What are your settings for compilation handling?
So you mean that link shouldn't limit the album view of the linked artist to the role he's having in that particular case? This is difficult territory... I tested this with a case where an artist was CONDUCTOR. Clicking that link would bring up that single album on which he has that role. Browsing by artist without role limitation would _not_ list that particular album, as CONDUCTOR was not configured to be included within the album list. Now what's to be expected if you click that link? ALL roles - which isn't what I had configured? All the albums without the one from which the artist is linked - which would lead to bug reports as that one album seems to be missing? Or that single album - leading to this very bug report? Too many options, too much confusion. The thread you're referencing is the best prove of this... I'm untargetting this as I'm not sure this can even be considered a bug. We'll have to discuss it. Thanks for your understanding.
All performing artist roles are displayed on song info. I would assume that any link to an artist would take you to the list of albums by that artist, as if the user had navigated to Browse artists > [the artist name]. What appears in the browse artists list is configured via Settings > Music Library > Composer, Band and Orchestra in Artists checkboxes and also "List compilation albums under each artist/Group compilation albums together" radio button option. When navigating to browse the Artists list, you should always see album artists, plus any ticked Composer, Conductor and Band/Orchestra checkboxes. You would also see track artists if "List compilation albums under each artist" was ticked. When you browse to an artist, you see all albums that the artist has contributed on. eg. if I browse to browse artists > Tori Amos, I see all albums where she is the main performer, and all albums that she has had guest performances on (i.e. a track artist). eg. Album "10 Years In The Life Anthology" by album artist "BT", she's down as a track artist on a single track. At the moment, if I go to that track, I see Album Artist = BT, and one of the track artists is Tori Amos. If I click on Tori Amos, it takes me to Home > Artists > Tori Amos, but only shows the single album "10 Years In The Life Anthology", as that is the only album that she appears as a track artist. And if I were to click on album artist "BT", I would only see other albums by BT that had an album artist tag. So I only see "10 Years In The Life Anthology", and don't get to see the album "This Binary Universe" because all tracks are by BT, and therefore they do not have the "album artist" contributor role. It seems clear-cut to me that all artist links should take you to the list of all albums that the artist has appeared on.
Incidentally, what change did you make for Various Artists? I notice that several of my compilation albums are now not automatically being identified as compilations. Although they do appear within Various Artists, they don't say "Compilation: Yes", and thus the artists that are usually only track artists appear blown out into the main list of artists. I have fixed this by specifically setting a COMPILATION=1 tag, so I'm not too bothered, but it does seem more broken than it used to be, and others might complain...
> What appears in the browse artists list is configured via Settings > Music > Library > Composer, Band and Orchestra in Artists checkboxes and also "List > compilation albums under each artist/Group compilation albums together" radio > button option. That's well said and easily done. But I bet it wouldn't take a week to get a bug reported because the track's album, from which you've been referred to that page, doesn't show up in the artist's album list. The best alternative I see is displaying _all_ albums in this case, which breaks with the settings you mention.
It seems clear cut to me that the current effect of clicking a track artist should not only display albums by that artist where they only appear as track artists. That's just not helpful, and already inconsistent when browsing. I can go to an artist containing a list of albums they are the main artist for and also albums that they contribute on. If I go to an album they contribute on, and then click on the artist name, it appears to take you to the same place (breadcrumb trail says the same), but it only shows the albums that have track artist role. My understanding of the difference between "artist" and "track artist" is that track artist is used for artists that appear on albums where an album artist has been set, such that the browse artist list can filter out track artists that only appear in the library as track artists. My feeling is that they shouldn't really be labelled as "track artist" in the web UI (they are still the main artist performing on the song). Internally the role is track artist for filtering the main browse artist list (depending on settings), but in the UI when displaying them they should be normal artist links. I guess you could argue that composer, conductor, band contributor role links could act differently though (although I would still expect the page to report the same as if I'd navigated to the artist, as the breadcrumb trail doesn't indicate any difference in the path to get to the list).
Created attachment 3247 [details] Browse artists > Tori Amos
Created attachment 3248 [details] Then click on an album where Tori Amos has a guest appearance on one track (track artist) for the album artist
Created attachment 3249 [details] Then click the track artist link. Notice that the first and last pages look identical, except the content is filtered without any indication of what the filter is. i.e. the breadcrumb trail is Home > Artists > Tori Amos.
imho there's no solution which will fit all. This feature will always be broken for someone: - now it's broken for you - if we display _all_ albums where a given artist has contributed in any way (composer, interpret...) it will be broken for those who don't want composers listed as artists - and the list will be different too, as in this case we see more albums than when browsing through artists - if we don't display composer and the other optional roles, you can end up with an empty list, if an artist is composer only - but it's consistent with browsing by this artist (which won't be possible due to an empty result set)
Possibly there is no solution that will fit all, but there must be a solution that is better than what we currently have. Leaving aside the issue of configurable contributor roles for a moment which I agree is a bit of a grey area, track artists is more clear cut. They are purely an internal implementation thing that the scanner has introduced. A list of albums by an artist should always include albums where they are the primary artist, albums where they are the album artist, and albums where they are a track artist. Track artists are not a configurable role - you always get albums by the track artist when you browse to an artist. Displaying track artists sometimes but not other times is not good. That is my primary concern, and a complaint made by other users too. I'd be happy if this got fixed just for track artists for now. Give me a pointer to the rough area where I should look in the code and I'll happily have a go at fixing it myself (irrespective of whether it gets patched or not).
This seems complex to target for 7.0.1. Michael, what do you think?
As I neither know whether this is a bug or a missing feature, nor how to implement it, you can target it for anything but the next release :-)
Possibly the only result of this bug will be to document the desired behavior in detail.
Steven to document this, and pass the document to Michael, and make sure the 7.3 new schema build behaves sensibly.
Adding keyword new_schema and moving target to 8.0.
since this seems to be an issue where some people will want a given browsing behavior, and others will want a different browsing behavior, why not identify the possible permutations, and allow the behavior to be adjustable via options in an advanced area in the settings?
I don't think any end-user has commented here that they like the way it currently works. To me it is categorically a bug - I can't imagine that anyone who actually clicks on a "track artist" link would expect to see only the sub-set of songs by that artist where they only appear as guests on albums. I've seen several forum threads where people have said they are confused why they don't see all music by an artist when they click on an artist link. I can see if I can find some examples to link to. I think that it's a bug that clicking an artist link doesn't show all music by that artist. When clicking an artist link from an album/song information context, SC should always show all music by the artist. Consider what happens when you navigate to a song from a compilation album. If you drill into the song info, and then into the album, you get a list of all songs on the album (not only songs on the album by the artist). If you drill into the artist, you get a hierarchy of albums/songs by that artist, and on compilation albums, and where they are a band, conductor or composer (according to the SC library settings checkboxes). Consider what happens when you are playing a single song from an album that has an albumartist (the song has a "track artist" contributor role, no artist contributor role). If you drill into the song info, and then into the album, you get a list of all songs on the album (not only songs on the album by the track artist). If you drill into the track artist, you only get a hierarchy of albums/songs by that artist where he appears as a guest artist. If you drill into the albumartist, you only get a hierarchy of albums/songs by that artist where there have been other guest performers. Consider what happens when you click an artist in the Browse Artist list. You see all normal albums by the artist, and where he's the album artist, and where he appears as a guest, and where he appears as a contributor on a compilation. All of those cases above are different. Quite hard to explain to the casual user, which suggests it's not right. An enhancement (maybe implemented with the new schema changes) on top of this would be to provide some option to filter the artist page to particular contributor roles (eg. when browsing an artist, provide options to show/hide guest appearances, bands, composers, conductors). Some people have asked for compilation albums to not be displayed when browsing artist > albums, for example. There could be browse menus for Browse Bands/Orchestras, Browse Conductors, Browse Composers. But clicking on an artist from anywhere in the interface should by default list all music.
To the extent that there is a solution to this, this is fixed in onebrowser. Any contributor link from songinfo leads to a list of all albums on which that artist is one of the configured contributors, the same list as one would get by navigating to that artist directly under Artists.
The artist link is now showing all contributions by that artist---regardless of role.
Paul, are you saying that if i click "John Lennon" it will then return a results list of songs of not only his, but all the covers where he is the composer in the tag? is that the desired behavior?