[hurricane51]

Kodi 17.3, Windows 10 x64

Kodi seems to have changed which audio tag that it uses for the Artist information when the listing is in Artist view. This has caused a pretty big problem for me.

All of my music is tagged properly, and I choose to make Artist and Album Artist the same. I did this to address a problem when an artist plays with different groups. It's particularly a problem with jazz albums.

For example, I want all Art Blakey albums to show as a single artist when the list is by artist. But I get Art Blakey, Art Blakey Quintet, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, etc. as different artists. All of the songs in all of the Art Blakey albums have Artist and Album Artist tags as Art Blakey. I've tried different skins with the same results. This worked fine under previous versions of KODI.

I assumed the scraper is taking precedence, but I believe I have the settings correctly configured. "Enable tag reading" is enabled, and "Prefer online information" is disabled.

If I examine the track with Media Info, it lists Album/Performer as Art Blakey/Art Blakey. However, a few lines further down is an entry for Performer and its value is Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. My tagging program does not show this field (and it shows a ton of possible tag fields). However, there's a category called Orig Artist. I added that but it made no difference.

When I examine the Details properties with another app (XYplorer), it shows a field called "Contributing artists", and this also reads as Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers. Thankfully, XYplorer also lets me edit this field and it fixed the problem. But that creates a huge problem. I have a large music library, as I'm sure many of you do. What this means is I have to go through EVERY album and edit this tag for every track, with an app that is clumsy because it was not designed for the purpose.

Does anyone know when and why KODI's behavior changed, and what the benefit was supposed to be? Is there a way to change it?

[Karellen]

Moved to Music Forum

[DaveBlake]

Kodi seems to have changed which audio tag that it uses for the Artist information when the listing is in Artist view. This has caused a pretty big problem for me.

All of my music is tagged properly, and I choose to make Artist and Album Artist the same. I did this to address a problem when an artist plays with different groups. It's particularly a problem with jazz albums.

For example, I want all Art Blakey albums to show as a single artist when the list is by artist. But I get Art Blakey, Art Blakey Quintet, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, etc. as different artists. All of the songs in all of the Art Blakey albums have Artist and Album Artist tags as Art Blakey. I've tried different skins with the same results. This worked fine under previous versions of KODI.

Krypton still uses the artist and album artist music file tags as before. If both tags are set as "Art Blakey", for example, that is what you should see. So I'm not sure what is happening here, but I will try to figure it out.

With "Prefer online information" disabled the scraper can not make any changes to song or album artist, so it is not that.

Seeing the tagging would make matters much clearer.

Possibly the easiest way forward is if you could upload an example music file that is showing the wrong artists, and PM me a link. I obviously want to respect the copyright etc., and will delete the file once I have seen the tags.

Otherwise I looking at the tags with Mp3tag, and sending a screenshot of the extended tag display (alt+T), showing as full a list of tags as possible. BTW tagging tools tend to have their own names for each tag, so what you have reported so far doesn't really help me much.

But also a different approach...
You are seeing Art Blakey, Art Blakey Quintet, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, etc. as different artists in the artists node. Could it be that Kodi has always got these song artists from your tagging, but that you had displaying them turned off, and now the default setting is to show them?

The setting previously and inaccurately called "Include artists who only appear on compilations", now called "Show song and album artists". Is that enabled? Does disabling it give you what you want?

[hurricane51]

Thanks for your reply, Dave.

I have already gone through the affected artists and changed them with XYplorer. I examined them with TagScanner and TagClinic (an old program). When I try to change them back I can't repeat the problem. If I change the Album Artist it repeats the problem, when when I make them identical it behaves as I want it to, i.e., it shows only the artist name. "Show song and album artists "was/is enabled. I'll disable that and see how it goes, but right now I don't want to look at it again (!).

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "Kodi has always got these song artists from your tagging, but that you had displaying them turned off, and now the default setting is to show them". Where does that setting appear?

[DaveBlake]

"Show song and album artists" was/is enabled. I'll disable that and see how it goes, but right now I don't want to look at it again (!).

This could be the heart of your issue. Previously you were only seeing the album artists by default, in Krypton the default shows both album and song artists. Disable this option and see.

If you have tags
ALBUM ARTIST = "artist1"
ARTIST = "artist1 / artist2 / artist3"

When "Show song and album artists" is disbled you just see "artist1" in the artists node.
When "Show song and album artists" is enbled you see "artist1", "artist2" and "artist3" in the artists node.

But I still don't have a clear idea of what you have now, or had, in your tags. If I knew I could explain with examples. Mp3tag is free, simple to use and comprehensive in what tags it shows, install that and show me what it reports.

[scott967]

An alternative, involving a bit of work but may be worth it, is to use the "artists" and / or "album artists" tags in conjunction with MBIDs, to achieve what you want (and maybe more).

Example, Musicbrainz treats "Art Bakely Quartet" as a separate artist from "Art Blakely" So if you have the release "A Jazz Message" you could tag is as:
Album Artist "Art Blakely Quartet"
but add new tags
Album Artists "Art Blakely / Art Blakely Quartet"
Musibcbrainz Album Artist Id "601e7466-eaf5-4a91-9909-ffd770b7e04a / 627024b1-5504-406c-ac2c-dfaebf403cd9"

The value of this extra tagging work, is now with "album artists only" in your music settings, under artist "Art Blakely" you see this album (and all other albums so tagged), but also an entry "Art Blakely Quartet" with just this album, so you have flexibility as how you view things.

scott s.
.

[DaveBlake]

You are right of course Scott, but I was avoiding getting into the more subtle nuances of tagging until the OP had shown me his basic tags. For example I don't know if he has mbid tags, I would guess not.

@hurricane51 please show me your tagging before you get deeper into this.

[hurricane51]

I tried various options, but the only way I can see the artist only in a list of artists is to use the same name in Artist and Album Artist. The other options do not work. Musicbrainz is not an option for various reasons. I've used mp3tag in the past and prefer TagScanner. All of the taggers tag correctly.

Since I've already changed my tags I'll stick with this. Besides, I can see the group on the album cover. It's just that I got different results with Krypton. I appreciate all the help and suggestions.

[DaveBlake]

Sigh.
Since you will not show me your tagging, I can only conclude that that is where the fault lies, not in anything Kodi is doing. I feel that this thread has been a complete waste of my time.

General note for anyone else reading this: I am a friendly helpful guy, but if you raise issues and then don't provde the information I ask for it is very frustrating. Please either provide the information, or don't ask for support.