Kodi and classical music, or how to deal with the composer as Track Artist

MusicBrainz Picard
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1

For classical music the Track Artist field should contain just the composer.
I’m not happy with this rule, I think it’s not a modern way but I don’t want to discuss the guideline here.
Since we have this situation, we must live with it.

I have releases – tagged with Picard – where it’s quite okay for me (or even better) to have the composer as Track Artist, e.g. a release of Bizet’s Carmen, where I don’t even know the performing artists.

For other releases (for me) the performing artist(s) is in the focus and I’d like to have the performing artist(s) as Track Artist, e.g. Elīna Garanča’s Habanera.

One major issue for me is the usage of fanarts in Kodi.
Kodi (with default skin Estuary) displays the fanart of the (first) Track Artist (if exists), otherwise the fanart of the (first) Release Artist. I hope this is current, but so it looks to me. You will see the fanart for the currently played track and the fanart is for the Track Artist, i.e. for the composer on classical releases (followed the CSG).
Basically the logic of Kodi is okay but I personally don’t like this for several releases. I don’t want the fanart for e.g. Bizet or Lehár and a changing fanart for every track but I’d like to have the fanart for Garanča in this case.
There is a workaround in Kodi by using album-fanart but then you need fanarts for all album you want to have it and it’s also not a feature for the default skin (and I don’t want to change the skin).

Based on this limitations the solution for me seems to be to set the “correct” artist as Track Artist. Since it’s not following the CSG I have to set it locally for my files. To set the Track Artist for all my albums is additional work (even if I use a Script).

Is this also a personal problem for others?
Is there a better solution?

2

You can solve this in Picard with scripting, for example with $set(artist,%performer%)

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3

While I haven’t used it, this seems pretty powerful and worth a check? :slight_smile:

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I should mention that the currently released version of Classical Extras only works with Picard versions lower than 2.2. A new release will be out shortly. If you need any help, please post to the Classical Extras thread referenced above.

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I know.
(…, 19, 20)

6

Yes, and I’ve tried it now,
but it’s not working. I’ve tried some releases (.flac and .m4a) but I only got errors

Error 
E: 11:06:06,799 album.error_append:259: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "picard\album.py", line 404, in _finalize_loading_track
  File "picard\metadata.py", line 409, in run_track_metadata_processors
  File "picard\plugin.py", line 219, in run
  File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\MusicBrainz\Picard\plugins\classical_extras.zip\classical_extras\__init__.py", line 4138, in add_work_info
    self.ERROR = options["log_error"]
TypeError: string indices must be integers

It also seems to be to complex for my needs: I just want correct Track Artists.

7

OK, so it’s clear why I get errors.

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As I think about it, I see this is not enough for me, since then the tags ARTIST and MUSICBRAINZ_ARTISTID are semantically different.

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This is why the Classical Extras plugin is great.
Right out of the box, it sets the metadata of your tracks right for classical music.

@MetaTunes May I take this opportunity to thank you for this great plugin!
It’s very easy to use, works well out of the box, and the extensive options make it possible to fine tune tagging style very easily.

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