iTunes Match is sort of downloading an album except it doesn't show up by album name on any device except my computer.

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Level 1

13 points

iTunes Match is sort of downloading an album except it doesn't show up by album name on any device except my computer.

We just purchased Vampire Weekend's CD album version of 'Father of the Bride' and tried to load it using Match. There are a number of problems:

Album shows it has loaded in Music (the iMac is on OS 10.15.2) but the album name, the artist, and the genre doesn't match the CD Info that Music itself shows for the album when you are importing it. In addition, the artwork is not there. When the Library is updated you CAN download it to other devices (iPhone, iPad) but the only way to find it on those devices is by searching for a specific song name from the album. There is no match for the artist or the album name. Scrolling through everything you will not see the album on any other category or search. On the iMac it is on Recently Downloaded. I looked in that option on the phone/ipad and it isn't there, and i also looked in Various Artists since its not recognizing the CD information that Music displays when you load the CD. It obviously does recognize that a CD is loaded and it will play it if all you try to do is play and not upload to Match. If you search for song name you can eventually find the album, but no artwork and it does not seem to have the band name tied to the album in any way. On the iMac finding it this way you can find the other songs by right clicking and searching from that option box. The songs play ok- I think- but I only played 4 or 5 all the way through and then just the first 30 seconds of others to test if they played at all. And when downloading to iPad/iphones it took a long time for some songs to start and/or finish initial album downloading to those devices. On the iPhone and iPad the album will play properly, but on my Gen 5 Apple TV you cannot stream it from your library or find it even by song name, which works elsewhere. It has now been 3 or 4 days since I uploaded it and all of my devices have at least album name/album search problems and the ATV flat out doesn't acknowledge it exists. The album is available for purchase from the Music store and I can't imagine that it isn't available on Apple Streaming Music so it shouldn't be a rights issue and the album is at the very worst one year old and up for Grammy awards so this isn't some backwater album.

Apple TV 4K, tvOS 13

Posted on Jan 1, 2020 6:39 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

EdThompson Author

Level 1

13 points

Jan 2, 2020 6:25 PM in response to EdThompson

I found how to fix this particular album. In the Get Info section of this album on my iMac there is a checkbox that says 'Album is a compilation of songs by various artists'. This option was checked, I unselected it, and uploaded the library to the cloud. It now appears as an album on my iPhone. The album is on my phone, but the artwork isn't for the album cover. But it is searchable now.

And it updated ok for my wife's phone as well. Still no album cover artwork, but at least you can search and find the album.

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Answer 2

turingtest2

Level 10

274,610 points

Jan 2, 2020 6:21 PM in response to EdThompson

We just purchased Vampire Weekend's CD album version of 'Father of the Bride' and tried to load it using Match.

Physical CD that you ripped using iTunes, or the album from the iTunes Store? The recently added view of your library should show the recent addition near the top of the list, or you can use the Songs view in Date Added, descending order and look near the top. See Identify cloud status icons in your music library on your Mac or PC - Apple Support. Are the tracks marked as purchased, matched, uploaded or something else?

tt2

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Answer 3

EdThompson Author

Level 1

13 points

Jan 2, 2020 5:50 PM in response to turingtest2

I have no hidden music, when I follow the instructions in your link. The site does say I have 13 items to be downloaded, but clicking on the Download button doesn't seem to do anything and I don't notice any new songs, but I have 3,0000 songs uploaded right now so I may not notice anything. The album I mentioned, 'Father of the Bride', still acts the same on both the iMac and on my iPhone, iPad and my wife's phone.

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Answer 4

Timbuktu

Level 3

790 points

Jan 3, 2020 10:00 AM in response to EdThompson

This is a known "issue" when ripping CDs with multiple artist entries. In your case the Vampire Weekend album had Vampire Weekend featuring different artists in the Artist field thus to keep the album grouped together, the Compilation checkbox was checked by whoever uploaded the CD info to Gracenote. Otherwise the album would have been sorted under "multiple artists". For typical compilation albums with various artists, in addition there is a view option in Artist view to "group compilations", and checking this box ensures they are organized by album (under Compilations) and not by Artist or Album view.

The alternative option for multiple artist entries for an album by a single artist would be using the Album Artist field and enter Vampire Weekend for all songs and uncheck the "Album is Compilation..." selection. In your case if you did not not populate the album artist field, multiple artist entries were created for each Vampire Weekend with featuring artist and the album is split.

I prefer to populate the album artist field, so before ripping a CD by a single main artist with the Compilation checkbox checked, I use Get Info and fill in album artist and uncheck Group album as compilation.

I hope this makes sense, there are plenty of discussions on album artist versus compilation versus various artists on the web.

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Answer 5

EdThompson Author

Level 1

13 points

Jan 3, 2020 10:53 AM in response to Timbuktu

I kind of did both, but not at the same time. I went to the album while on my iMac, noticed that there were different artists so I edited it so the artist was Vampire Weekend. But the ‘Album is a compilation of various artists’ box was still checked. I unchecked it and uploaded library to the cloud and it showed up on my phone as well as my wife’s. But I did that the next day from changing the artist.

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Answer 6

Timbuktu

Level 3

790 points

Jan 3, 2020 1:05 PM in response to EdThompson

If you don't care preserving the featured artist info then just disregard this post and change the artist field to a single artist as you did, preferably prior to importing the CD into Music app.

My point is in order to avoid this issue of assigning a compilation tag, select all tracks and use Get Info to see if the tags are set to your liking after inserting the CD and getting the Gracenote info and prior to importing it into Music app. It is fairly common for artists to feature other artists on their albums thus Gracenote often tags these albums as compilations and adds the featuring artist entry. Since you changed the artist field on all the songs who featured additional artists to be only Vampire Weekend, you likely lost that detail of who was featured on this song (unless you add this info under the title or in the Comment field). That's where the album artist field comes into play which allows you to preserve the featuring artist info but have it shown under the main artist name as a regular album.

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