"Sort Artist" Grouping Question

[stopbrickwalling]

I am a longtime user of MB...I have always used the ARTWORK view>grouped by ALBUM ARTIST.

Recently, I have been dabbling with ARTWORK view>grouped by ARTIST and ARTWORK view>grouped by SORT ARTIST.

On tracks that have multiple artists, my tags are essentially entered as "ARTIST A; ARTIST B".

When I group by ARTIST, MB reads the artists as separate artists and makes a separate entry for both in the ARTWORK view.

However, when I group by SORT ARTIST it reads the 2 separate artists as one artist (i.e. "ARTIST A/ARTIST B") and makes an entry for only this joint artist in the ARTWORK VIEW.

So here's my dumb question(s):
Is there a reason why the group by SORT ARTIST combines these multiple artists entries?
Is there a way to fix/alter this behavior?  

Here are screenshots:
Grouped by ARTIST....notice how MB displays one entry for artist "The Band"....any "duet" artists on individual tracks have their own separate entry (not visible on this screenshot).


Grouped by SORT ARTIST....notice how MB displays new joint artist multiple entries for "The Band/each duet artist", creating a separate entry for each combination.  This is the behavior that I want to avoid when using SORT ARTIST.


Clearly group by ARTIST and group by SORT ARTIST are reading the "ARTIST A;ARTIST B" differently....why is this and how can I "fix" it.

Thanks!

[phred]

Clearly group by ARTIST and group by SORT ARTIST are reading the "ARTIST A;ARTIST B" differently....why is this and how can I "fix" it.

Tagging ALBUM ARTIST as "Various Artists" should fix it.  Last Waltz would then show as one album, as long as ALBUM TITLE is the same for all tracks.

[psychoadept]

The way that multiple Artist values are handled in Artwork view is unique to that tag.  Most tags, including Sort Artist, are treated as a string for the purposes of sorting and grouping.

However, as long as you have your ignore words configured appropriately in Tags (2), Artist should be giving you the appropriate sort values in Artwork view.  (I know because this is how I do it.)  You can also tag hidden artists in the Multiple Artist Splitter if you need to, to make separate artists show up when sorting by Artist.

[stopbrickwalling]

Phred...thanks for the reply.
I do use the "Various Artists" tag for my compilations CD's.
For "The Last Waltz" however, I still want that album to show under "The Band" in my ARTWORK view and don't consider it a true compilation, so I don't want to label the album as a Various Artists album under ALBUM ARTIST.  I have the album tagged as ALBUM ARTIST "The Band".
When I group by ALBUM ARTIST in ARTWORK view, it works fine...displaying all under "The Band".

I have both performers tagged under ARTIST and that works fine...MB reads the semi-colon in the tag and works fine.

I also have both performers tagged under SORT ARTIST, and that is where it's giving me the problem.
 

[stopbrickwalling]

Psycho...thanks for the response.

Basically, I want to have Group by ARTIST view and Group by SORT ARTIST view behave the same except one would display the ARTWORK in alphabetical order by first name of the ARTIST and the other would alphabetize by last name of the artist.

I already have my tags set as I want them...for example....ARTIST tag is "The Band, Neil Young".......SORT ARTIST tag is "Band, The; Young, Neil".

I just want MB to read the semi-colon and split the SORT ARTISTS just like it does in the ARTIST view.

Is there a reason that ARTIST SORT is handled differently than the other views?

Thanks for everyone's help here.

[psychoadept]

I suggest making this a wishlist request.

As a workaround, you could have a column browser with Sort Artist, which should handled multiple values separately.

[stopbrickwalling]

Wish List sounds like a good idea.
I wanted to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding something first or not misunderstanding how others use this same information.
I know that Steven posted that he was going to be very busy and figured it best not to request something if there was a simple answer.

Thanks.

[psychoadept]

It works the way you want for Sort Composer, so it would make sense for it to work that way for Sort Artist.  Hopefull Steven just needs to tweak it, when he gets through with 3.0.