Well now you have another reason to ditch spotify

I’ll check them out, too! Volunteer, listener supported radio is the best.

If you want real radio, with real people, check out some non-profit community radio stations. I support www.therootsfm.org and www.crstl.fm . They are free to listen to and always ad-free & AI free.

[but there’s plenty more out there, I like to support local and the announcements for local stuff going on]

Yeah me too, I started putting those type albums under the artist , but movie soundtracks and other comps still get filed as compilations.

And for some bands I’ll include solo albums by members as part of the band discography (by putting the band name as album artist), since I would put them on the shelf that way if they were discs. Unless they have a long established solo career, then I don’t bother.

I didn’t know about fre:ac, I’ll have to try it out.

I let iTunes (now Music in Mac) automatically sort folders years ago and this is pretty much how it organizes files. Except for “Various Artists” albums it has a separate Compilations folder. Most tag editors I’ve used besides iTunes/Music have the tag available to tag something a compilation.

For VA comps centered on a particular Album Artist I sometimes just uncheck the compilation tag and instead of Various Artists, I put the main artist the comp deals with in the Album Artist field.

I’ve never given up collecting compact discs, buying paid downloads or collecting free downloads, then organizing my own digital library. The streaming apps mostly are ephemeral to me. I use them to check out stuff but not rely on, so I don’t waste time building playlists or adding a ton of albums. And the apps vary in usability.

Soulseek is a great application to find and share music files, i like it more than torrents which i swore off a decade ago. But I still like to buy most of my music, i just appreciate it more. And listening to CD’s on their own is great.