FLAC tags

[Stuart Neill]

On Friday 19 September 2008 10:21:41 Eddie Armstrong wrote:


>
> Proposed Extra Tags
> (as I do not collect classical music I think others better qualified
> should suggest tags for them, e.g. 'soloist' )
> 1:    Adopt *all* xiph's tags.
> 2:    Keep Amarok's extra tags
>           make YEAR=albumyear, ARTIST=albumartist
> 3:    And add:   trackyear, trackartist,
> 4:    introduce multiple field for some tracks as per this xiph example
> "Field names are not required to be unique (occur once) within a comment
> header. As an example, assume a track was recorded by three well know
> artists; the following is permissible, /and encouraged/: [my emphasis]
>
>               ARTIST=Dizzy Gillespie
>               ARTIST=Sonny Rollins
>               ARTIST=Sonny Stitt
>
> (this would particularly help jazz collectors but also help, say, duets,
> being tagged by each artist) Some people like to keep track of the
> 'personnel' playing on each track so I imagine a personnel tag might be
> useful
>
> Hopefully this would form the basis for discussion re tags' lists.

I could not agree more with your view. For me, the two most pressing 
requirements are:

1. The separation of Album_Year and Track_Year. This would go a long way 
toward making "compilation" and "greatest hits" albums more useful.

[For those who don't at present distort the tagging convention by making 
Year=Track_Year, you are missing one of the best features of Amarok, randomly 
playing songs from a particular year or era. Nostalgia is better than it used 
to be!]

2. The handling of multiple Artist tags. This would largely solve the problem 
of "collaboration" albums.

While Amarok has always done a good job of informing the user of artists 
appearing on compilation albums, the more important category of collaboration 
albums has been missing (although they can be found via search). Examples I am 
looking at would be "Billy Bragg & Wilco" and "Alison Krauss & Robert Plant". 
I suspect any extension to Amarok that could deal with "Crosby, Stills, Nash & 
Young" would have the problem licked :-)

  
-- 
Stuart Neill