1162: Changing Artist changes Album Artist

[Owyn]

Not sure if this is a bug or a feature.

I decided to clean up some tags on some "duets" albums, e.g. Jerry Lee Lewis - Last Man Standing. Editing properties for a single track. Changes to Artist are replicated in UI for Album Artist.

Need to "fix" Album Artist each time to remove second artist.

FYI: Schema I am switching to is

Album Artist=artist1
Artist=artist1[<space>/<space>artistn]

[MoDementia]

It might be useful if the album artist is empty but its annoying when its not and adds another 2-3 or more artists to the album artists field

[Peke]

If Album Artist is Different than Artist than MM should not change Album Artist if you change Artist. At least that MM do when I tested few Minutes ago.

[Owyn]

Ahhh. I have been setting Album Artist to <artist1> for the album before editing Artist for each track.

So, I guess I need to set it to something like "Temp" before and then reset it to <artist1> after I have edited all the tracks in the album.

Edit: Thinking about it a bit more, don't need the "Temp" step, just cleanup Album Artist AFTER all track Artist changes are made.

[spacefish]

That's not a good workaround though. What if you need to change artist 1 long after you've "cleaned up" the album? I still make tweaks to artists every so often because I listen to a lot of different kinds of music, much of which is new to me and I may not have access to the correct spelling/name/collaboration/etc. of an artist at the time of addition.

I reported this long ago but it got swept under the rug. There should be some sort of mechanic to "lock" the album artist when editing the artist field. IMHO, MM should NEVER adjust any field in tandem with another edit without user confirmation. AFAIK, Artist/Album Artist is the only tandem operation but it's still bloody annoying.

[Nonreality]

That's not a good workaround though. What if you need to change artist 1 long after you've "cleaned up" the album? I still make tweaks to artists every so often because I listen to a lot of different kinds of music, much of which is new to me and I may not have access to the correct spelling/name/collaboration/etc. of an artist at the time of addition.

I reported this long ago but it got swept under the rug. There should be some sort of mechanic to "lock" the album artist when editing the artist field. IMHO, MM should NEVER adjust any field in tandem with another edit without user confirmation. AFAIK, Artist/Album Artist is the only tandem operation but it's still bloody annoying.

Totally agree, I use Artist as the performer of the song and album artist as the Albums overall artist. Say Springsteen has a guest, that would go under artist on that song. I also use album artist for Various artists. I don't want it changed unless I do it.

[chrisjj]

I reported this long ago but it got swept under the rug.

Do you have a link to hand?

IMHO, MM should NEVER adjust any field in tandem with another edit without user confirmation

Agreed. In fact why have this tandem effect at all??

[dmaclii]

Agreed this is annoying behavior. Any update on a resolution?

[tommycrock]

I've struggled with this problem for a long time and wish it didn't work this way. The biggest problem I have with it is the way it occurs silently so unless you're watching you won't even spot that it's occurred, meaning that I have regularly split up albums by adding guest artist details to individual tracks and not realised that track now has a different album artist. Only later when I play the album and wonder - where did that song go? - do I find it. This surely shouldn't happen when the album is part of a group all with the same album name and album artist.

[Lowlander]

If it is mistagged it should happen. There is no perfect solution to this as there are situations where people do expect it to change and there are situations where it shouldn't. As both scenarios occur the worst would be changing the behavior as that will cause a lot more mistagging (as people won't be informed that it changed).

And yes I normally don't want the Album Artist to change along when not all tracks on the Album are having their Artist value changed.

[chrisjj]

There is no perfect solution to this

The solution used by all other music librarian programs I have used is fine. That solution is for the program to NOT mess with one field when another is changed.

[tommycrock]

Another solution would be to allow me to disable the behaviour - have it as an option that is on by default but I can switch off in settings - as I never want it. If a track does have the same album name and album artist as others, but isn't actually part of the album (is the one track that has the wrong album artist), then I would be changing the album artist.

[aprilsnow]

Has ther been an update for this ?
How can I turn this autosync off ?

[Lowlander]

As of 4.0.3 this isn't happening anymore. Editing Artist doesn't change Album Artist.

[chrisjj]

Thanks LL.