Why does the Artists tab/page also show Album Artists?

[user24 313]

Hi , I’ve been trying out a few (fun) experiments this weekend with Album Artists/Artists/Composers and embedded metadata to see if I can get some useful alternate views of the various music pages within Emby.  I’ve had some success, but am also discovering some anomalies along the way, e.g.:

• The Album Artists tab/page shows only Album Artists
• The Artists tab/page shows Artists PLUS Album Artists
• The Composers tab/page shows only Composers 

At first I thought this was an error I was making, so I then tried a test to be sure by creating a new entity called 123 Testing. Shown below is the embedded metadata from Mp3tag imported directly into Emby. The AlbumArtist/Artist/Composer tags have slightly different names:

Here is what the three Emby pages show:

I also checked some others and, yes, all my carefully crafted unique Album Artists appear under Artists as well! These aren’t Artists they are Album Artists – there is a difference.

Shouldn’t the Artists tab/page logically filter by the named field/heading like the Album Artists and Composers pages do?

Is this by design or an error in the UI? Or maybe I am doing something wrong? Is it possible to remove the Album Artists from the Artists tab/page?

I mostly use the Album Artists tab/page and hadn’t really worried with the others very much until now. If anyone has further knowledge about this, it would be most appreciated. Cheers!

 

Edited September 8, 2024 by user24

[Happy2Play 9780]

But every album artist is usually tagged as Artist/Artists also.  Same as your example above your have AA and A.

[user24 313]

7 hours ago, Happy2Play said:

But every album artist is usually tagged as Artist/Artists also.  Same as your example above your have AA and A.

Yes sure, I understand that your Blake Shelton example is the usual majority case and that when AA and A are both the same, then of course there is only one entry/entity shown under both the AA and A tabs and the anomaly disappears.

However AA and A can be separate and distinct from each other and Emby does have the three different music headings to select from.

Two very common examples where AA and A are usually different are using AAs of "Various Artists" and "Soundtrack".

It is also very common for more than one Artist to be credited on an Album's Songs, but they are not credited as the Album Artist.

An entity (e.g. Blake Shelton) can logically/mathematically have 7 true variations for AA, A, C.

• “Album Artist” only.
•  “Artist” only.
• “Composer” only.
• “Album Artist” and “Artist”.
• "Album Artist” and “Composer”.
• “Artist” and “Composer”.
• “Album Artist”, “Artist”, and “Composer”.

As best as I can figure out, it seems that Emby combines and separates AA, A and C differently, depending upon the page.view, but, in many instances, still retains the generic "Artists" heading for selected combinations. I found another example of this yesterday that I hadn't seen before (not of major concern though):

Going back to my original query for the Artists tab/page:

• Is this by design or an error in the UI?
• Or maybe I am doing something wrong?
• Is it possible to remove the Album Artists from the Artists tab/page?

I'm just trying to understand more about Emby so I can configure it to work better for my music. Thanks!

Edited September 8, 2024 by user24
Fixed a silly typo!

[Luke 42078]

I don't know if this is a good idea to change for all users as I don't think most consider this a distinction. The Artist tab was really meant to be an All, but I suppose an option to exclude album artists wouldn't be a big deal.

 

[user24 313]

18 hours ago, Luke said:

I don't know if this is a good idea to change for all users as I don't think most consider this a distinction.

Luke, you’re possibly right... 99.9% of people likely don’t even notice or care greatly about it, otherwise this would have been raised as an issue well before now. Also, artist AAs (AC/DC, Bob Dylan, Cream, etc...) that typically appear under both AA and A tabs anyway, are always going to greatly outnumber the non-artist AAs (Various Artists, Soundtrack, Compilation, etc...) in the current combined “All” Artists view.

18 hours ago, Luke said:

The Artist tab was really meant to be an All, but I suppose an option to exclude album artists wouldn't be a big deal.

If a selectable option was possible (and not a big deal) to implement, then I would probably make use of it. However, now that I understand the “All” approach, I can configure my library accordingly. Whatever you do or don't do - please keep the Album Artists tab!!!

Thanks for the reply and the explanation.