Semicolon Show When Splitting With Multiple Artist

[SansPikachu]

I want to have a collaboration album to be shown in both of their tabs. This is the closest I've gotten by changing the album artist to "JPEGMAFIA; Danny Brown" but it still shows the semicolon. Also, I want to keep the main artist as "JPEGMAFIA" to keep Last.fm scrobbling correct. Please help!

[vincent kars]

To the best of my knowledge <ALBUM ARTIST> is single value, use <ARTIST> for multiple values.

[hiccup]

As Vincent Kars already pointed out: 'Album Artist' should be a single-value field.
Don't try and make it multi-value. Don't use semi-colons for it.

If you want to use multiple Album Artists within MusicBee, create a custom tag 'Album Artists'.

[SansPikachu]

How do I make a custom tag for that? Also, I don't need to have them both put as the album artist. I just want the album to be in both of their tabs.

[Zak]

To the best of my knowledge <ALBUM ARTIST> is single value, use <ARTIST> for multiple values.

As Vincent Kars already pointed out: 'Album Artist' should be a single-value field.
Don't try and make it multi-value. Don't use semi-colons for it.

It is possible to use multiple values in the Album Artist tag - I use it a lot - which is why MusicBee is correctly showing the collaboration album under each artist's tab.
But it only works in certain places where MusicBee knows how to separate them.

e.g.
Set the Thumbnail Browser to display Album Artist and it displays a separate entry for each one:


OP's problem is that MusicBee won't separate multiple values in a tag used for the grouping header in Album and Tracks view, hence the semi-colon.
I don't think there's any way around that.

You could make a Wishlist request for it but I can see this being the kind of thing that looks like a simple change on paper, but would be difficult to implement in practice, given it affects how tracks are grouped and there's a lot of permutations at play.

[SansPikachu]

OP's problem is that MusicBee won't separate multiple values in a tag used for the grouping header

I just turned off the headers in the view settings. Thank you!

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

I hate to strongly impose on how others categorize their music files, but this is really what the <Sort Artist> tag is for. The tag splits artists properly in every View I've tried.

[Zak]

This is really what the <Sort Artist> tag is for. The tag splits artists properly in every View I've tried.

Is it though? It's not very helpful to say that without including a description (or preferably a screenshot) of how you're using it to solve the OP's issue.

I just tried adding multiple Sort Artist values to the the same album and it didn't make any difference:

[hiccup]

As Vincent Kars already pointed out: 'Album Artist' should be a single-value field.
Don't try and make it multi-value. Don't use semi-colons for it.

It is possible to use multiple values in the Album Artist tag - I use it a lot

Yes, at a certain moment in time MusicBee started to allow 'Album Artist' to be multi-value.
Which was a bad decision in my opinion.
The concept of having 'Album' and 'Album Artist' is essential to keep tracks belonging to an 'album' together.
When a user has no understanding of that and/or chooses to ignore that simple principle it can result in unforeseen issues.
(plenty of such issues have been discussed on the forum already)

In my opinion it wouldn't be a bad thing if MusicBee would revert to 'Album Artist' only being allowed to be a single-value tag.
'Album' is not allowed to be multi-value either, is it? (I haven't checked, but I hope not)
Users having an understanding of the matter, and a good reason to use a multi-value 'Album Artist' can easily establish that by creating a custom tag for 'Album Artists'. I am doing that myself.

[Zak]

Yes, at a certain moment in time MusicBee started to allow 'Album Artist' to be multi-value.
Which was a bad decision in my opinion.

I disagree. Of course an album can have multiple album artists. I've just included two screenshots where that is the case.

The concept of having 'Album' and 'Album Artist' is essential to keep tracks belonging to an 'album' together.
When a user has no understanding of that and/or chooses to ignore that simple principle it can result in unforeseen issues.
(plenty of such issues have been discussed on the forum already)

If anything, it's usually people not being aware of the Album Artist tag who ask why their compilation albums aren't shown as a single album. I can't recall many issues attributed to people using it incorrectly.

Assigning multiple values to the Album Artist tag has no bearing on how albums are grouped in MusicBee that I've seen. Quite the opposite - where it's appropriate to add multiple artists, MusicBee handles it well and it makes it easier to find collaborative albums. As I've shown above, for that soundtrack album, I can browse to the entry for either Trent Reznor or Atticus Ross in the Thumbnail Browser and Column Browser and the album appears under both, exactly as I'd expect it to.

I'm not sure what you've done in the past. Maybe earlier implementations had issues which have since been fixed, or you tried to do something funky with it, but it's been working fine for me for years. Given MusicBee's practically infinite combination of possible layout permutations , I'm sure there are ways to break different views if you try, but the same can be said for any tag.

In my opinion it wouldn't be a bad thing if MusicBee would revert to 'Album Artist' only being allowed to be a single-value tag.

That's a big call. It makes sense for Album Artist to allow multiple values to reflect the fact that many album do in fact have multiple artists.
And you haven't actually presented a case for where it doesn't work as you'd expect it to.

'Album' is not allowed to be multi-value either, is it? (I haven't checked, but I hope not)

This isn't comparing like for like - A single track/file can't belong to multiple albums. An album can have multiple artists.
 
(And it is possible to add multiple Album tags to a file using the Tag Inspector, but MusicBee doesn't really try to handle it. I would describe the results as 'undefined'.)

Users having an understanding of the matter, and a good reason to use a multi-value 'Album Artist' can easily establish that by creating a custom tag for 'Album Artists'. I am doing that myself.

I'm not sure you're gaining anything by doing that. It would depend on your own settings of course, but it sounds like your custom Album Artists tag just replicates what MusicBee would do with the normal Album Artist tag.

[hiccup]

I disagree. Of course an album can have multiple album artists. I've just included two screenshots where that is the case.

It does not matter how many people or bands are named as album artists.
When an album has what you call multiple album artists, such as John, Jim, Joe, the album artist is "John, Jim, Joe".
When another album has the artists John, Jim, James, for that album the album artist is "John, Jim, James".

John is not the album artist. Nor is Jim, etc.
They all together are the album artist.

To me that's a very basic and logical principle.
Of course from a human and fuzzy standpoint it can be desired to have and use multiple album artists (as do I).
But with things as complicated as MusicBee can get with tagging, and also important, interacting with other software and databases, the best advice is to use the basic tags and concepts just as they are intended for.

Deviating with all sorts of stuff should and can be done at next stages, such as custom and virtual tags.

edit
Here is a method that explains and describes how a custom tag 'Album Artists' would work:
https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=29851.msg166102#msg166102
It's targeted at users of MusicBrainz' Picard, but the idea is the same.
 

[MotleyG]

I just tried adding multiple Sort Artist values to the the same album and it didn't make any difference:

I do the same, but have just a handful of albums that truly have multiple Albumartist tags. Off the top of my head there is one by Sting and The Police, and another by Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. These feature separate tracks from each artist. I suppose they could be considered a "Various Artist" compilation album, but really this isn't the same case IMO.

I go one step further with the sort tag as well.
Albumartist = Sting; The Police     Albumartistsort = Sting; Police
Albumartist = Waylon Jennings; Willie Nelson     Albumartistsort = Jennings, Waylon; Nelson, Willie
This does not break MusicBee, and it also works well using both GoneMAD and Poweramp players on Android. Others that do not support splitting Artist tags just show both with the semicolon. In the MB column browser, I can choose either of the individual artists, and the entire album is displayed.

Back to the OP's request though, the header in the main Albums and Tracks view does still display both artists separated by the semicolon. This is expected in my opinion since that is the actual tag value.

[MotleyG]

OP's problem is that MusicBee won't separate multiple values in a tag used for the grouping header in Album and Tracks view, hence the semi-colon.
I don't think there's any way around that.

You can create a Virtual tag and use that in the Grouping Header instead of "Album Artist". Set up a new virtual tag like "Grouping Header Album Artist" and then use the replace function to change or even remove the semi colon. For example I chose to change "Sting; The Police" to display in the header as "Sting & The Police" instead.

Code

$Replace(<Album Artist>,"; "," & ")

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

It does not matter how many people or bands are named as album artists.
When an album has what you call multiple album artists, such as John, Jim, Joe, the album artist is "John, Jim, Joe".
When another album has the artists John, Jim, James, for that album the album artist is "John, Jim, James".

John is not the album artist. Nor is Jim, etc.
They all together are the album artist.

To me that's a very basic and logical principle.

Agree one thousand percent.

Is it though? It's not very helpful to say that without including a description (or preferably a screenshot) of how you're using it to solve the OP's issue.

I just tried adding multiple Sort Artist values to the the same album and it didn't make any difference:

Mind the genre mess, please. I haven't listened to these albums to tag them how I wish yet.

[frankz]

I'm with Dr. Hiccup.  When you look at the spine of an album, there's an Album Title and a singular Album Artist.  Anything else is what the per-track Artist field is for.  If we're going for replicating our physical albums as digital albums, this is what is correct.