Artist vs Album Artist
Many of the readers would find the title of this article a little funny as to them an artist is the same as an album artist and why on earth would one try to find out the difference between an artist and an album artist. However, if you are a music lover and trying to build your digital library, compiling music from all categories, you know what a headache it can be to find the song of an artist you so dearly love in your iPod if the song is not tagged under the name of the artist separately. This problem arises mainly due to the fact that some of the albums contain more than a single artist as when the main artist invited another celebrity singer to sing a duet with him. There are also soundtracks from movies where different songs are sung by different artists, and you are not surer how to tag the track to be able to get to the song at a single go. Let us clear the difference between an artist and an album artist for better storage in MP3 devices.
Album Artist
This is a tag that a music lover should apply to all those compilations where there are different tracks sung by different artists or by two or more artists. One can choose the phrase Various Artists to tag these albums to make it easier for one’s music player to get to the track that the owner wants to hear instantly. One can choose another phrase that suits him or that he can remember easily, but the point to remember is, have consistency or otherwise the music player gets confused and is not able to play the song or the track of an artist when the owner wants to play it. This gives a lot of flexibility to the music player and allows it to come up with the song of an artist even if it is tagged under various artists. Making use of such tags makes the music inside our music player mush more navigable.
Artist
This is a tag that is used to classify albums under the name of the main artist and that contain all the songs sung by the same artist or band as is the case in most of the albums. So, if there is an album by Michael Jackson, you know you can easily tag the album under his name as all the songs in the album have been sung by the same artist.
Summary
When all the tracks in an album have been sung by the same band or artist, it does not pose a problem for the music player and it can come up with the song you want to listen by just clicking on the name of the artist. However, the problem arises when that an artist has sung few songs that are present in different albums where main artists are different. There are albums where two or more artists have tracks, or a few tracks have been sung by two or more artists. In the case of such albums, tagging them under the label of album artist or various artists solves the problem for the music player, and it can easily come up with the song of an artist even if it is found in an album of another artist. Thus, the tag album artist becomes useful in case of compilations.