So I HATE having multiple “artist” entries for the same people on my iPod. For example, I don’t want to scroll down and see “Ryan Adams” followed by “Ryan Adams & the Cardinals”, especially considering there is also “Whiskeytown” which really itself could be called “Ryan Adams”. I find it terribly annoying.

So I lie to iTunes and say “Nope, that isn’t Ryan Adams & the Cardinals” that’s JUST “Ryan Adams.” But then a few days later, I change my mind, go back, and relabel it all (adding the Cardinals back in).

However, if it’s the same artist, but totally different band name, then I can live with that. I can live with “Bob Mould” “Husker Du” and “Sugar” all having their own artist entries…but I did have to create a “Bob Husker Sugar Mould” playlist in order to be able to shuffle between them.

Originally I did that with Ryan also (“Ryan Ryan Ryan”) but then he was pissing me off so I went back and relabeled (out) the Cardinals again. I’m so fickle.

Then there’s “DJ Dangermouse” “Dangermouse & Jemini” and “Gnarls Barkley”. Ugh. I left them all as artists and then made a “Danger Danger Danger” playlist. But the playlists can really start to pile up…

Back, back, back in the days of the very first iPod ever, at the time, it did not realize that “The” is not how you want things filed alphabetically. So any band that started with “The” found itself in the Ts. So I switched all the names to things like “Beatles (The)” and “Cars (The”). And then they made a new, smarter iPod that knew to ignore the “The”s. So then I would import some new album or song and wind up with “Shins (The)” followed by “The Shins”. So again I had to go in and relabel things.

I don’t want a “Justin Timberlake” entry next to a “Justin Timberlake featuring Timbaland” entry. So anytime they put the “featuring” crap in the artist line, I delete it and put it after the song title instead “Sexyback (feat. Timbaland)”.

Then there’s the “random people who input song & artist names and submit them to iTunes and then when I import albums with different IDs I don’t know which is which”. Paste 20 had a song by “Bobby Bare”. Then Paste 25 had a song by “Bobby Bare Jr’s Young Criminal Starvation League.” Or so iTunes IDed them. Does it not seem likely that these are the same artist and one or the other name would be correct and not both? Yet, so far, I am too lazy to actually get out my Pastes and find the truth…

Oh the traumas of managing your music….