Albums with same name grouped together

[bodhik...@gmail.com]

I have an issue where I have a band that has two albums with the same name. Normally albums will be ordered by year. But when you have 2 albums that have the same name they get grouped together instead of being seperate albums in order by year with the rest of the albums. How do I get them to be seperated and put in order by year? The only thing I know will seperate them is if I put a year next to the album name. Please help!

[Justin (JRT)]

If you go Menu->Settings->Library->Album Grouping , you can set some grouping criteria. There are eight total ways you can group albums, so hopefully one works well for you. ;-)

[bodhik...@gmail.com]

There is only 3 options to group albums. Same artist, same album artist, same folder. I don't know what any of those does. Every time I select one I never notice any difference so I just leave it unchecked.

[Justin (JRT)]

There are three independent options. That gives you eight combinations.

Each of these options are a requirement. By default, all albums with the same name are grouped together.

If you select, say "Artist" and "Folder", then all albums with the same Artist and in the same folder on your Android device will be grouped together.

If selecting to require the same artist, same album artist and same folder doesn't change anything for you, then your albums must all have the same artist, album artist and be in the same folder or they would be split up. Make sense?

[bodhik...@gmail.com]

Yes that makes sense. I usually have all my music thats by the same artist have the same artist and album artist in the data and they are located in the same artist folder. I fix the metadata so everything is organized properly by album artist. But if Artist XYZ has 2 albums both named X. One was made in 1993 and the other 2006. It groups both albums titled X together on Rocket Player. It won't seperate them by year even tho they are not in the same album folder. They are in the same artist folder. Theh should be seperated by year regardless of having the same album title and I can't figure out why rocket player wont let me do that unless I change the album name which I shouldn't have to do.

[Justin (JRT)]

Rocket Player doesn't support artists releasing two different albums with the exact same name. Honestly, that doesn't make logical sense. I don't think Spotify or Apple Music support this either. They would name the albums "Some Name (2006)" and "Some Name (2010)" if they did.

That said, you can move the two different album music files into different album folders and set the "same folder" grouping option. That should separate the two albums.

[bodhik...@gmail.com]

Oh ok. Basically what Ive alresdy done by renaming the album, "album name 2018", "album name 1997". Well.. thanks for the help.

[theinsc...@gmail.com]

Steam Powered Giraffe are guilty of this same sin. They have Album One and Album One. The first was released in 2009 and the second in 2011. The lineup of the band changed and they re recorded many of the songs with the new lineup. The two albums don't even have the same song list. I used the date appended to name trick too.

By the way, if you've not heard any SPG, go listen/watch to Honeybee on YouTube.

[Joe Castleman]

I'm seeing this now in the "Albums" tab, where The Complete Savoy Recordings by Lester Young is grouped together with The Complete Savoy Recordings by Stan Getz, as though they were one album.    If I set the Album Grouping option to "Same Folder" it doesn't change anything (probably because the folder names are the same, even though they're underneath different artist folders). If I set it to "Same Album Artist" then they show up as separate albums, attributed to the correct album artist, but with all of the same tracks from both albums.  Same if I set it to "Same Album Artist" and "Same Folder" .  (I can't group these by "Same Artist" because this value varies from one track to another, and then I wind up with that many separate albums.)

It occurred to me to change one of the folder names (on my device), but I wasn't sure how iSyncr would handle the name change (and for example re-sync a duplicate under the original folder name).

If I go under the Album Artist tab then both of the albums show up correctly -- it's just that I typically use the Albums tab.

Did I hit a limitation or is there something else I can try? Thx...

[Rocket Player]

Sorry you are running into these issues. 

In the album artists tab, click on one of the album artists and then in the top right hit the 3 dot menu and hit Show As Songs instead of Show As Albums. 

Let me know if that doesn't fix it.

Thanks

Caroline

[Joe Castleman]

Actually it started working after changing the Album Grouping settings, I guess it just needed time to sink in (I don't remember, but I might've restarted the phone in the meantime -- so maybe there's a "force quit" that ought to be part of these steps?).  I checked another 2 albums with the same title and they're correctly sorted. Thanks!