[steve1977]

This will be a difficult one to describe and it may even be intended behavior. I am using latest Krypton nightly. I am a big fan of the development effort with the new music library and like the improvement areas.

I noticed one change, which I am not sure whether it is intended or a bug.

Let me start to describe what is happening by an examples of two albums:

Album A - ALBUMARTIST XXX
* Song 1 - Artist XXX
* Song 2 - Artist XXX
* Song 3 - Artist XXX
* Song 4 - Artist YYY

Album B - ALBUMARTIST YYY
* Song 1 - Artist YYY
* Song 2 - Artist YYY

Kodi scans this to the library and then shows me two artists in artist view (disabled: show artists that only appear on a compilation)
ARTIST XXX
ARTIST YYY

So far so good. When now clicking on Artist YYY, I see two albums (both A and B). When clicking on Album A, it only shows one song (Song A).

Is this intended? I would much prefer to only see albums where Album YYY is the albumartist. Otherwise, I easily get a scattered view of all albums where this artist is a compilation.

I am happy to share sample size by email or send a log file if this helps. But first want to understand whether this may even be expected / wanted behavior.

Thanks i advance for looking into this!

[black_eagle]

Yeah, I think that's correct behaviour. Jarvis is the same.

Artist YYY is on two albums, hence both albums being shown. However on Album A, artist YYY only has one track therefore only that track is shown.

I agree that I would prefer to only see Album B listed under artist YYY. In fact, this behaviour annoyed me quite a lot as my wife has a large collection of compilation albums, and they pop up in listings quite frequently. So, I created a node to attempt to remove them.

PHP Code:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<node type="folder" visible="Library.HasContent(Music)">
    <label>Artists (No Compilations)</label>
    <content>artists</content>
    <order direction="ascending">artist</order>
    <path>musicdb://artists/?compilation=false&albumartistonly=true</path>
</node> 


It isn't 100% perfect (which is likely down to my tagging) but it has removed a good 95% of the stuff I don't want to see. It does of course rely on a compilation being tagged as such.

What I would prefer to list is artist=albumartist but I can't see a way currently to do that.

[DaveBlake]

It's not a change Steve, it has been like that for some while but possibly you have only noticed it on Krypton as it is more likely to correctly separate song artists when a song has more than one.

Nice custom node work Black_eagle, and sorry no syntax (yet) to get just albums where artist is album artist.

Kodi nodes are designed to work from songs back. For example select artist by genre and you get those artists that have albums with songs of that genre. Similarly with albums by artist, you get those albums that have songs that involve that artist. Some times it is desirable, but sometimes it isn't

I am always game to extend user music library facilities, and getting it to show only the albums for an artist rather than those albums that have songs by that artist is an easy data query. What I don't know is how to present best to present these options to the user without complete confusion. Suggestions? It could be a system option I suppose, but persoanly I would like to mix and match nodes or be able to switch between methods dynamically e.g. when looking at the albums for an artist.

[jjd-uk]

1The show artists on compilations settings should control that, with it enabled all artists are shown & with it disabled only album artists should be shown. However I'm not 100% sure what's suppose to happen when an album artist also has songs on another artists album as in the above example.

[DaveBlake]

1The show artists on compilations settings should control that, with it enabled all artists are shown & with it disabled only album artists should be shown. However I'm not 100% sure what's suppose to happen when an album artist also has songs on another artists album as in the above example.

I so yearn to get that setting name and description changed! How about it Jeff?
Yes it controls what artists are shown in the artists node - those that have albums, or all song and album artists.

But not sure that sowing doubt on what is "supposed to happen" is helpful. I promise that the behaviour is by design and is generally consistent with how nodes work. Would we like it to do something else is a more useful conversation. If yes, then rather than just replace the functionality (and upset some users) how can we best present the option for both approaches to the user?

[jjd-uk]

I would like to change that setting into a 2 option selection dialog rather than a simple enabled/disable toggle, but I've no idea how to do that. So it would be something like:

Displayed artists in Library: All artists / Only album artists

All artists would be same behaviour as having the artists in compilation setting enabled.
Only album artists would be the same behaviour as having the artists in compilation setting disabled.

[black_eagle]

Yes, we WOULD like it to do something different.

Or, at the very least, include something whereby I can create my own node. I simply long for more freedom to display stuff exactly as I want it. I'm not decrying the way it works now, I just want more flexibility I guess.

It is annoying (or at least, it is to me) to view say, Barry White and have a Prodigy album in there also. It's correct in that there is a track on that album with Barry White on it, but it's not what I want to see particularly when browsing Barry. I'd much rather that track was excluded. If I want to look at Prodigy tracks it'll be listed in there.

That said, something like 'albumartist=artist' would exclude that Prodigy album, as 'albumartist=Prodigy,The' but each track has differing artists.

[jjd-uk]

That said, something like 'albumartist=artist' would exclude that Prodigy album, as 'albumartist=Prodigy,The' but each track has differing artists.

If I understand correctly that's exactly how it should work at the moment if your tagging is correct.

[black_eagle]

If I understand correctly that's exactly how it should work at the moment if your tagging is correct.

Everything is tagged with Picard so I'm reasonably sure that it's all tagged correctly. I did actually check the Prodigy album tags before I posted. Barry White is indeed listed as an artist on track 6, hence why that album appears when browsing him. This is correct behaviour currently, but I would like to be able to list only those albums where albumartist==artist. Then it would only show Barry White albums.

AFAIK, there isn't a way to do this currently either with a folder based node, or a rules based one.

[DaveBlake]

Totally with providing power and flexibility Black_eagle
I'll see what I can come up with.

jjd_uk now you are confusing even me! Clarify with an example perhaps?

There are a number of possible behaviours when navigating from an artist (even when not filtered by genre)
The alternatives are:
1) show only the albums that have artist X as album artist (ignoring song artist totally)
2) show the albums that have artist X as album artist or have songs with X as artist.

Kodi does 2), black_eagle (and others) would like 1)

But then what songs do you show:
a) all the songs on that album, or all those albums
b) only those songs on the album(s) that have song artist X
c) those songs that have X as album artist or song artist

It depends on the user doesn't it

[jjd-uk]

2) show the albums that have artist X as album artist or have songs with X as artist.

Kodi does 2), black_eagle (and others) would like 1)

OK the part in bold I wasn't sure on, thanks for the clarification.

So would something like this be possible:

Display in Artists:

All songs by all artists
All songs/albums by album artists
Only albums by album artists

[DaveBlake]

So would something like this be possible:

Display in Artists:

All songs by all artists
All songs/albums by album artists
Only albums by album artists

Sorry, not quite clear on what you have in mind. Being a bit picky because I know this can get confused really quick.

All kinds of queries are possible, but if you also want to drill down within criteria then we need to give details more thought. The current (song) genre > artist > album > song node system is very consistent even if not doing what every one wants all the time. Currently clicking on an artist X on a node gives the albums where X is an album artist or have songs with X as artist. If node has genre filter G then it gives the albums that have songs with genre G where X is an album artist or song artist. From there *all gives all these songs. The genre filter means that you may not see all the albums for an artist or all the songs for an album if some have all songs tagged differently.

So say we have a list of artists - the artists node showing all artists or just album artists, or with a genre and/or role filter too, or come to that from a smart playlist of "artists" determined by applying various rules - where from there? Do we continue to apply any genre or role filtering? What else do we want to be able to do?

Dare we use the albumartistsonly flag at album level e.g. when true not only do you only see album artists in the artists node, but on clicking on artist X you only see the albums where X is an album artist, and then all the songs for those albums? Tempting, but I'm sure some users would miss the song artist parts.

I think there is a fundamental alternative to the current song genre based system that does not pass the filtering down. So no matter how an artist list is filtered from artist X you choose to see either

i) all the albums with X as album artist. Click an album and it just shows all the songs for the album.
ii) all the songs with X as album artist (a union of songs from the albums of i).
iii) all the songs with X as artist
iv) all the albums with songs with X as artist. Click an album and it just shows all the songs for the album regardless of artist.
v) all the songs with X as artist or album artist.
vi) all the albums with songs with X as artist or album artist. Not same as Kodi as click an album and it just shows all the songs for the album

Note v) is same as clicking *all from albums view for an artist in Kodi.
Navigating i) could lead to ii), but clicking on album of vi) leads to songs that may not be in v), and albums of iv) leads to songs that may not be in iii). Hence listen them separately. Also if the artists may have been filtered by some song properties, the songs and albums you see will ignore it. This could give odd results for artists that cross genres.

I can see why Kodi navigation picked a method and stuck with it!!

Personally I tend to pick artists and albums to play using the properties of some songs, but then play all the songs on the album. But that's just me. I also have very few compilation albums (nor does Mrs B). Yet both Black_eagle and I would be happy with using i), all I need to do is implement it inobtrusively

Anyone still with me?

[steve1977]

Thanks for all your thoughtful posts. My vote goes to proposed solution (I) to avoid scattering the view with compilations. What do others think?

[black_eagle]

Perhaps I am approaching my music library from the wrong direction so to speak.

Pretty much all of Dave's (excellent) explanations start from Genre and continue on. I don't think I've ever started out by selecting a genre first. I always start from Artist because for me, that's the most logical way to look for something. Perhaps I should be looking at Genre and starting from there?

[DaveBlake]

It depends how you have tagged genre and how many artists you have. My music tastes are broad, a single list of thousands of artists is totally unmanageable for me. So I have used the genre tag as a custom field that I can use to "tag" my music. It includes standard genres like "classical" or "country" but others are "female", "soundtrack", "saxophone", "wife stuff" etc. I tend to select what to play by thinking: "oh I feel like some Jazz", look at jazz artists, "a bit of Miles Davis" look at his albums, "yes that one" and add the album to the queue.

I think Zag likes to make his long list of artists manageable by first letter of name custom nodes. There are varied ways to look at music. But start from artist makes sense too, although it sounds like you could do with splitting off your wife's artists

Seriously I just need to decide how best to make artists > albums with albumartist = X available without confusing folks or blocking some future additions