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Album Artist

An album artist is a way to group an album by its main artist.

An example of why to use Album Artist is with the album 'Keep on Running' by 'Steve Winwood' which has tracks by 'Steve Winwood' but also by 'The Spencer Davis Group', 'Traffic' and 'Blind Faith' - All groups associated with 'Steve Winwood'. Setting 'Steve Winwood' as the Album Artist will group all the tracks in one album under the Album Artist 'Steve Winwood'.

Another example is the album 'Supernatural' by 'Santana' which has tracks featuring 'Dave Mathews', 'Rob Thomas'. 'Eric Clapton' etc. By setting the Album Artist in all the album's tracks to 'Santana', this will ensure the album is shown under the Album Artist 'Santana' rather than 'Various Artists'

Likewise, for a compilation album - you can set the Album Artist to 'Various Artists'.

Helium Music Manager will automatically assume an album with different artists is a 'Various Artists' album if no Album Artist is specifically set.

Likewise, helium Music Manager will automatically set the Album Artist to the value of 'Artist' if the 'Album Artist' tag is not set.

Album Artists can be viewed using the Artist Browser (Album Artist mode), the Album Browser (sorting and grouping) and the Music Explorer (Album Artist node).

If the option is set to 'Save iTunes specific tags' then for MP3s, Helium Music Manager will set the Band/Orchestra tag to the value of 'Album Artist' (as used by iTunes) and this field becomes non-editable in the Tag Editors.