Show more information (i.e artists) on all songs

[animaldaydream]

Description

Some views for track lists are currently not showing track artists.

This is very confusing for people who don't know their library by heart. Occasionally I have to remember a track by album-artist combination, which is never obvious on this UI. I also have new albums on my phone frequently, which I need to figure out, but the list never shows this information.

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This is what happens on featured artists:

This album shows none of the features, however all of the tracks have lots of featured artists.

Here is the same album on Picard:

The album on Spotify, from the browser:

The same on Apple Music:

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In addition, compilations and various artist soundtracks are impossible to figure out:

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Features are often the only way to recognize different versions of a track using official titles.

Here's vocal vs. instrumental versions of a track:

Artists often re-release an album with bonus tracks, including tracks only distinguished by a new featured artist.

Problem solved

No response

Other implementations

Currently Auxio shows the album below the track title.

Music players generally show the track artist below the track, rather than the album. In those cases, the album is identified by the thumb of its cover instead.

Otherwise, both the track artist and the album title are shown. The track artist isn't really left out in most players.

Benefit

For some genres of music, the best identifier for a track is the album, but lots of music do not expect the player to not show the track artist, and thus the version of these tracks are often identified by the featured artist instead.

Tagging with MusicBrainz metadata makes this even worse as some artists place the features in the title; MusicBrainz standards dictate that these must be put on the artist field instead, so even in those cases the title is left identical.

Currently, people who have these tracks present in their library have to check the track properties before playing or queueing a track.

Understanding a newly listened album in a library requires also to understand which artists are present; this aspect of music listening is currently lost for these cases. Only the track title can be read.

Duplicates

• [X] I have checked this feature request for duplicates.
• [X] I have checked that this feature is not implemented in the lastest version.
• [X] I have checked the Why Are These Features Missing? page.
• [X] I agree to the Contribution Guidelines.

[OxygenCobalt]

Okay, I'm now a little more keen on changing it @animaldaydream, but I'd actually like to see how this looks from a mobile perspective. I think using Spotify or Apple Music's desktop client is a little inaccurate, given that desktops have much more horizontal space than phones. I think I'll leave this open for a bit to see the response by other users of the app.

[illdeletethis]

Even in the rare cases an album in my collection has more than one artist it"s still clearer information to see which album the song it is on than which artist made it, but i wouldn"t be too bothered by the change.

[animaldaydream]

I got a friend to take screenshots of these. I mixed up the first album but the example is essentially the same.

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[animaldaydream]

Even in the rare cases an album in my collection has more than one artist it"s still clearer information to see which album the song it is on than which artist made it

I am very aware of this problem.

I think having the album cover present is a better compromise as most albums have a different artwork, and would reduce the number of omitted or redundant information.

The other solution there would be to show both album and artist credit, however OxygenCobalt has mentioned that they're concerned with it taking up too much vertical space and cluttering the UI.

I personally think that would be better regardless, but I do see the problem and I am not sure on how to fix it without a settings toggle; OxygenCobalt is also kinda concerned about filling up the settings, so that's a conflict.

I wouldn't like to see Auxio turn into Poweramp, which goes the opposite route and fills the settings with a very absurd number of toggles and value fields, though.

But with a large library, the only other solution to such a problem is retagging the music programatically by putting the artist in the title field, or checking the file properties while browsing. In my case, the former takes me about two or three days...

[OxygenCobalt]

Yeah, I think picking one specific display strategy untenable and requires it to be dynamic. I could always do some kind of dynamic heuristic @animaldaydream, such as:

• Showing artists only if the track artists differ in an album
• Showing artists only if the track contains other artists than the currently shown one

The only concern here is how jarring it would be.

[animaldaydream]

It doesn't help me completely because my intention is moved aside. The artists shouldn't be hidden from a track arbitrarily.

Picking up such an algorithm for the UI doesn't usually go well regardless. Even if it's the only thing to implement, I wouldn't do it.

Some people would prefer to see the artist, and others would prefer to see the album; I'll remain strong in that neither has priority, and we need to see both.

If it's not possible to show both, I'd honestly prefer to drop the argument, because we clearly can't agree.

[OxygenCobalt]

Got it. Since we can't really come to an agreement, I'll leave this issue unresolved and see how other people respond. I'll make my decision then. Thanks for raising this feedback in the first place.

[afontenot]

I was going to add this as a feature suggestion and found this issue instead. Here's another screenshot of another Android player (VLC) that handles this. I'd also note:

• This is extremely useful information on compilation albums, and I don't think there's any way to get to the artist tag currently without playing the song (or "view properties" I guess).
• The situation when it's most useful to have this tag available is when viewing an album. I think I could forgo the information in every other situation, or when the (singular) album artist is always the same as the tagged artist, but it would be really useful here.
• I kinda like the VLC style of displaying this, and would propose it as not too obtrusive. This could probably be made optional too.

[OxygenCobalt]

That's an interesting idea @afontenot. The issue is that I try to refrain from having variable-length information separated with a bullet, as I've found it becomes truncated far too often.

[TL-P]

Hey, just wondering if this is enhancement still being considered since I would very much welcome it :)

The issue is that I try to refrain from having variable-length information separated with a bullet, as I've found it becomes truncated far too often.

At least in the album page, I'd imagine this shouldn't be much of a problem since the time duration label is almost always at most 5 digits long?

Also, a quick suggestion if you're implementing this: you could only show the artist information if it deviates from the album artist, like this (from MusicBee):

(I'm impartial about what to show (artist or album information) for tracks in the artist page, but I wouldn't show both.)

[OxygenCobalt]

It's the artist label that's the issue, for example:

`8:00 - Artist Name That Is Lon..."

Looks really bad.

While I could only show it if the artist differs, that still runs into the truncation issue, arguably moreso than before.

[TL-P]

Thanks for the quick feedback! I just thought truncation for long artist names wouldn't be such an issue since artist information is shown on the playlist page, so the same issue should apply there (although less so, because duration isn't shown).

Personally, I don't mind truncation as long as it occurs rarely (which would be the case with my library), and I think the benefit of knowing the artist makes up for some truncated labels (especially for compilation albums). This is of course a matter of taste and up to you to decide.

Thanks for the great app btw, have been using it for quite a while now :)