Hi!

I've noticed that Amarok doesn't use the Album Artist tag which is a shame. I have a few albums that have one or two tracks by a different artist, say. I always have my playlist grouped by the Album and so the 'Various Artists' checkbox isn't needed, albeit it would be a bit silly to use it if there's only the odd track that's not by the main artist IMO.

Say I was to click on the one track that was done by another artist... it would show up in the Albums applet as 'Albums by [artist]' instead of something like 'Albums featuring [artist]' or something. Should it not show the latter option or maybe just the track by that person instead of the whole album that's by a seemingly different artist?

Sorry if it comes across as nitpicking... it's not my intention to. I'm just trying my best to make sure that Amarok get's a great final release! =)

I've found a few ways to handle this. If all the tracks are by both people, such as the Alison Krauss/ Robert Plant album, I list them both as the Artist. Unfortunately, that means that the context reports for both, but misses all albums and tracks by either one of them, which is uncool. A search will find them though.

If there are only a few tracks by a particular artist, add their name in the track title: Track Title (feat. Particular Artist). Again, the context menu will miss those tracks, but search will find them. This is the MusicBrainz suggested method.

Finally, you can change the Artist tag, and let that track sort with the artist, rather than with the rest of the album. I don't like this at all, and would prefer changing the entire album to Various Artists, and having it all together. The context menu will find the track with either of these options.

So you just have to decide what is most important to you, and make your choice based on your priorities. It's always a trade-off. I wish everyone could agree on the best set of tags, and everyone agree to use them. Composer, Songwriter, Album Artist, what have you. A girl can dream.

I second using the musicbrainz suggested method: Artist - Title (feat. Artist2)
It's worked very well in my collection, where a good 40% of the tracks are remixes and guest spots.