itunes album import problem

[mat7h3w]

I am confused as to something when it comes to organizing my MP3 collection. I was wondering if anyone could help offer me some advice as to how to figure this out. Some of my albums, when I go to import them into iTunes, will display correctly. Others will not. What I am meaning is this; some will import properly, and then when I set itunes to change to any of its various display modes for albums, (for example the one where it shows the cover art somewhat like a jukebox), it will show a single piece of artwork, and have all the songs organized together.

Others, I go to import them, and it will show the artwork multiple times, one for each song. I've checked, and after selecting the songs as a group, and choosing propertes, they list as having the same album name, etc., etc. but for the life of me iTunes refuses to accept that they are all the same album. I've run into a similar issue with Windows Media Player, and I'd really appreciate some help with this. To give a better idea of what I am talking about, I have posted some screenshots.

The 1st is what I believe to be correct, as seen with my album; The Best of Me by Bryan Adams. It shows a single piece of artwork, and shows only that single artwork for representing the entire album.

The 2nd is where the error is, where it shows a artwork entry for each seperate song, even though they are all on the same album, and were added to iTunes the same way as the Bryan Adams album was, i.e. choosing file --> add folder to library.

As you can see in the 3rd, every song in the problem example, i.e. the Ultimate Sports Album, when highlighted all together, and right-clicking and choosing properties, all have the same Album Title, the same year, the same genre, but of course different artists, titles, and track numbers as would be expected.

I've tried checking other albums that I've ripped out of my collection which have various artists, and some seem to run into the same issue, others do not. I would really appreciate any assistance with trying to figure this out and solve this mess.

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c87/mat7h3w/1.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c87/mat7h3w/2.jpg

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c87/mat7h3w/3.jpg

[Roobocop]

I had this same problem and it seemed to come from the ID3 tags not matching up. For instance, all the songs were for the same album and same artist, but if you took each song's info individually, some would have something written in the comment box, others may have an album composer listed, and whenever these tags didn't match up exactly, it would come up as being a different album on the fancy juke box browser thing, so it looked like 10 different albums with the same artwork, when it was supposed to be just one.

This is how I fixed it:

1)High-light all the songs you want to be in the same album

2)right-click and go to 'get info'

3)now's the annoying part: you'll have to make sure EVERY option is filled out. Artist, Album, Album Composer, Year, Disc Number, ...., EVERYTHING. Every box must be checked, you don't have to write something in everyone, you can leave it blank, but your problem is coming from one of these tags being set to something on one or two tracks, but not the rest, so you want to make sure they're all the same.

It was pretty annoying, but it's the only way I found to get the albums to sort correctly. They're could be an easier way. Hope it helps!

[bonestonne]

Roobocop pretty much said it..the tags aren't all the same. i have a quite large library myself, and have come across this issue so many times. There are two types of tags for an mp3: IDv2 and IDv3. when the two tags aren't the same, thats when this issue comes up. also, programs don't always tag the same, so this issue is pretty common. i have a library of 7000+ and i've spent days fixing tags like that, but there's nothing else you can do do solve it.