iTunes Question - Date of Album

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by PageLesPaul, May 4, 2015.

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  1. PageLesPaul

    PageLesPaul To be a rock and not to roll... Thread Starter

    Location:
    Lithia, FL USA
    I downloaded the new Steven Wilson remix of Jethro Tull's "Minstrel In The Gallery" on iTunes today. I changed the date of the album from 2015 to 1975. When I loaded the album on my iPhone it still has the date as 2015. This has happened only once before. I have tried everything.

    Any suggestions?
     
  2. pronghorn

    pronghorn Forum Resident

    Location:
    Minnesota
    Do you use/subscribe to iTunes Match?
     
  3. PageLesPaul

    PageLesPaul To be a rock and not to roll... Thread Starter

    Location:
    Lithia, FL USA
    No.
     
  4. Steve Martin

    Steve Martin Wild & Crazy Guy

    Location:
    Plano, TX
    You probably need to change your sync settings to remove those tracks from your phone and sync them back on again.

    Some edits in iTunes aren't seen by the sync process as changes, perhaps you synced once before the year was changed and then again after (or you had auto download on on your phone and it downloaded them from iTunes directly instead of syncing them from your computer).

    I'm actually leaning toward the phone having downloaded it's own copies, but you'll have to check your settings.
     
  5. IronWaffle

    IronWaffle It’s all over now, baby blue

    I've grappled with this and to the best of my knowledge there's nothing you can do about it.

    If you go into iTunes and add the "Release Date" column in the traditional "spreadsheet"-style view (Ctrl+J/Cmd+J [Win/Mac]) you'll see a frustratingly uneditable date field. That's the date iDevices use to "reverse chronologically" sort albums -- unless it's blank, in which case it defaults to the editable "Year" field.

    The fact that you have no sorting options in iDevices' music app adds to the uselessness (in my opinion) of their default app. Every so often I contact Apple about this and other issues. You can do so here. From what I've read about iOs 8.4, it doesn't look like they're addressing this anytime soon even though the music app is undergoing a significant overhaul.

    Not to shill (I don't represent them), but after spending many shekels seeking a viable alternative, the best I've found is Ecoute for $1.99. It allows:
    • sorting albums alphabetically
    • "Artist -> Album" view does not include albums' songs, so scrolling is blissfully consistent with iOS 1-6
    • "list" and "grid" views,
    • shuffle "by song" or "by album" options,
    • "light" or "dark" theme (I use the option that automatically adjusts based on available light and screen brightness),
    • queueing/up next (as well as iCloud and last.fm if you use those services), and
    • my biggest selling point: it writes to your play count/play history history, so if like me you rely on smart playlists then this is the best alternative I've found.
    The only drawbacks I've found are:
    • it cannot nest your playlists, so they are all simply alphabetical,
    • the Artist/Album/Song/etc. menus are clunkily hidden in a top down list,
    • some features, such as online lyrics [available in tiny text via the now playing screen behind a small button on top] or "view all" songs by an artist [accessed by holding down on a listing for a few seconds] aren't necessarily intuitive to find.
    That last "drawback" revealed to me another plus: I learned they respond to questions, feedback and suggestions pretty promptly.
     
    Last edited: May 5, 2015
  6. PageLesPaul

    PageLesPaul To be a rock and not to roll... Thread Starter

    Location:
    Lithia, FL USA
    Let me clarify one thing that I probably should have written a little clearer. I downloaded "Minstrel In The Gallery" off the CD onto iTunes. I did not purchase it from iTunes.
     
  7. RingoStarr39

    RingoStarr39 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Baden, PA
    Delete the album from your iPhone and then unplug it. Plug it back in and then put the album on again.
    If that doesn't work, then completely delete the album from your iTunes library and re-import the CD.
    Only this time change the date from 2015 to 1975 before you import the CD.
     
  8. IronWaffle

    IronWaffle It’s all over now, baby blue

    It doesn't matter. Most of my library is from CDs* -- some of their "Release Dates" are original, some are remastered, and some don't make any sense. If you make the "release date" column visible in your library you can see which (if any) other titles are/aren't incorrectly dated.

    If you rip it using something other than iTunes you can avoid iTunes/Gracenote inserting the bad data. Otherwise, whatever is listed as "Release Date" is what your iPhone, iPad or iPhone will use to sort reverse chronologically no matter what date you manually enter in the "Year" field.

    [* Edit: like @Raf below I now use XLD for ripping but unlike him I used to use iTunes. The only files where I run into this problem are my few iTunes purchases and the many files from when I did rip using iTunes.]
     
    Last edited: May 5, 2015
  9. curbach

    curbach Some guy on the internet

    Location:
    The ATX
    You may need to edit the date at the album level and for each individual song.
     
  10. Raf

    Raf Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    I have an iMac with iTunes 12 and an iPhone 5s, and I've never had the problem the OP is describing.

    FWIW: Looking at my iTunes library, I see that all of the tracks with an entry in the Release Date column are ones I bought from the iTunes Store. All of the tracks I ripped myself have nothing in that column. I use XLD to rip CDs, and I have Gracenote lookups turned off.
     
  11. Gabe Walters

    Gabe Walters Forum Resident

    Does anyone know of a good tag editor for Mac that can edit the Release Date field?
     
  12. RingoStarr39

    RingoStarr39 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Baden, PA
    The release date field is only supposed to be used by iTunes purchases to determine when that album was released on the iTunes Store.
    Normally the "year" field is the only one that should be altered.
     
  13. Gabe Walters

    Gabe Walters Forum Resident

    The problem, for me, is that iTunes Match arranges albums on my iOS devices not by Year, but by Release Date. I'd like to change that.
     
  14. Rolltide

    Rolltide Forum Resident

    Location:
    Vallejo, CA
    There's been a few times I've needed to edit the title of the album to be "2015 remaster" or something. Easier then grappling with metadata.
     
  15. Galley

    Galley Forum Resident

    CDs have a separate year of release field. Each of the individual tracks imported from that album can have their own year of release.
     
  16. I run new acquisitions through Musicbrainz Picard before importing to iTunes. But be aware, a remix like the one in the OP, you'll probably get the 2015 date anyway. Picard has a tendency to skew towards CD release dates instead of the original vinyl.
     
  17. Werner Berghofer

    Werner Berghofer Forum Resident

    Yes: Metadatics, a very useful and reliable tool.
     
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