I thought something was awry. I knew I had loaded my Oasis “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?” CD into iTunes ages ago, but when I searched for Oasis on my iPod recently, none of the songs from that album appeared.
As it turns out, the tracks on that album are listed as being part of a compilation, and iTunes handles compilations and the artists who appear on them differently than other artists. If I wanted to hear anything from that album, or even see anything from that album as a choice as I browsed on my iPod, I would have to browse not by Artists but by Compilations.
This just wouldn’t do. But Apple knew I might feel this way, so here’s the solution, Part I in iTunes and Part II on my iPod.
Part I: In iTunes, if I typed Oasis into the search field, I saw all of their songs and albums, including “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?” However, if you have the iTunes browser open, you’ll see All under Artsits and one of the listings will be Compilations. Go to iTunes Preferences and, depending on your version, click either the General tab or the Advanced tab and look for the option “Group compilations when browsing.” If this is checked, the artists on compilations or whose albums are designated as compilations won’t appear when as Artists, only as Compilations. Unchecking this allows these artists to appear as artist. For browsing iTunes, this setting isn’t such a big deal. But it’s different for the iPod.
Part II: On my iPod, if I browsed under Artists, I never saw anything from the “(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?” album. I also noticed other missing artsits, particularly those with greatest hits albums. The fix is easy. For the newer iPods, go to Settings, then Music Menu, then scroll down to Compilations. If this is checked, same as above: the artists on compilations or whose albums are designated as compilations won’t appear when you browse by Artists, only when you browse by Compilations. If you uncheck this, when you browse by artist you’ll see every artist, whether they’re a part of a compilation or not.
And hence the caveat. Apple created the Compilations category and settings to keep your artist list from being cluttered with the names of all the artists who have one obscur track tucked away on some movie soundtrack. It’s helpful, but you’d be surprised how many albums are designated as compilations. I’m finding music from eons ago on my iPod that I’d forgotten I had!
For earlier iPods, look under the settings menu. You don’t have to do anything on the iPhone or, I assume, the iTouch. My iPhone shows compilation artsist wherever I browse.
