# Looking for suggestions on how to organize my library (metadata + multiple artists)
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/looking-for-suggestions-on-how-to-organize-my-library-metadata-multiple-artists/51053
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [December 6, 2020, 8:23am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/looking-for-suggestions-on-how-to-organize-my-library-metadata-multiple-artists/51053 "2020-12-06T08:23:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@swept1](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/swept1)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2020, 8:23am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/looking-for-suggestions-on-how-to-organize-my-library-metadata-multiple-artists/51053/1 "2020-12-06T08:23:01Z")
_Note: Before reading I want point out that I am a developer and am in the process of creating my own client for playing my music. However, that doesn't mean I want to start using a bunch of custom ID3 tags and do a bunch of other things that would only apply to my app, should I ever choose to migrate. I still want to follow common practices and standards as far as metadata tagging as closely as possible._
I've been pushing this off forever now because I just don't know how to do this and get the desired outcome.
The thing causing most of the trouble is songs/albums that have multiple artists. This falls under these categories:
- Featured artist: Artist1 feat. Artist 2
- Joint release: Artist1 & Artist2
- A combination of the above: Artist1 & Artist2 feat. Artist3
I want there to be a distinction between who is a main artist and who is a featured artist.
If you see Apple Music/Spotify/TIDAL, you can see that if an artist is credited as a main artist, the item will show on their artist page. And there also may be a "appears on" section that shows on whose songs/albums they are featured on. So they seem to have a way to distinguish that (namely, [see TIDAL's "credits" section on an artist's page](https://listen.tidal.com/credits/3618971)).
I want to be able to:
- View all of artists albums (+ EPs, singles, etc.)
- View all of artists features **without** crediting them as main artist, keeping separate from the rest of the main discography.
---
**EXAMPLES**
- Travis Scott - HIGHEST IN THE ROOM
- _Shows up on Travis Scott's page. There are no issues/complications with this._
- Justin Bieber - Holy (feat. Chance the Rapper)
- _Shows up on Justin Bieber's Page. Also shows on Chance the Rapper's page under an "appears on" section or something like it, separate from his main discography, and_ _ **can** _ _be viewed when viewing_ _ **all** _ _songs that have Chance the Rapper on it._
- Future & Lil Uzi Vert - Over Your Head
- _Shows up on_ _ **both** _ _Future's and Lil Uzi Vert's page. They are both main artists and therefore accessing either page will show up as a "main" release._
- NAV & Gunna - Turks (feat. Travis Scott)
- _Shows up on_ _ **both** _ _NAV's and Gunna's page. They are both main artists and therefore accessing either page will show up as a "main" release. Also shows on Travis Scott's page under an "appears on" section or something like it, separate from his main discography, and_ _ **can** _ _be viewed when viewing_ _ **all** _ _songs that have Travis Scott on it._
_---_
Can I use metadata in such a way to make this work? What I'm considering doing is creating multiple tags for the corresponding fields, and using a custom `FEATUREDARTIST` tag that would distinguish a featured artist from a main artist. So for the examples above:
- Travis Scott - HIGHEST IN THE ROOM
- _ALBUMARTIST = Travis Scott_
- _ARTIST = Travis Scott_
- Justin Bieber - Holy (feat. Chance the Rapper)
- _ALBUMARTIST = Justin Bieber_
- _ARTIST = Justin Bieber_
- _FEATUREDARTIST = Chance the Rapper_
- Future & Lil Uzi Vert - Over Your Head
- _ALBUMARTIST = Future_
- _ALBUMARTIST = Lil Uzi Vert_
- _ARTIST = Future_
- _ARTIST = Lil Uzi Vert_
- NAV & Gunna - Turks (feat. Travis Scott)
- _ALBUMARTIST = NAV_
- _ALBUMARTIST = Gunna_
- _ARTIST = NAV_
- _ARTIST = Gunna_
- _FEATUREDARTIST = Travis Scott_
You may notice that the album artist and artist are the same for these examples, however there **can** be cases where you have something like:
- Juice WRLD & The Weeknd - Smile _(from the album Legends Never Die by Juice WRLD)_
- _ALBUMARTIST = Juice WRLD_
- _ARTIST = Juice WRLD_
- _ARTIST = The Weeknd_
- Lil Yachty & DaBaby - Oprah's Bank Account (feat. Drake) _(from the album Lil Boat 3 by Lil Yachty)_
- _ALBUMARTIST = Lil Yachty_
- _ARTIST = Lil Yachty_
- _ARTIST = DaBaby_
- _FEATUREDARTIST = Drake_
- Future - Rockstar Chainz _(from the album Pluto x Baby Pluto by Future & Lil Uzi Vert)_
- _ALBUMARTIST = Future_
- _ALBUMARTIST = Lil Uzi Vert_
- _ARTIST = Future_
Like I said I don't want to deviate too far from what is considered the standard, and that using a custom tag would only work with my app since I would support it. Worst case scenario I figure is that I just have a bunch of extra `FEATUREDARTIST` metadata tags that I could just remove en masse.
Looking for any help on how I could make something like this work via metadata, or as an absolute last resort via custom development!!
---
### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [December 6, 2020, 8:53am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/looking-for-suggestions-on-how-to-organize-my-library-metadata-multiple-artists/51053/2 "2020-12-06T08:53:19Z")
Tags for MP3 files allow multi-value fields like e.g. several of the type ARITST.
Ther is no standard field for FEATUREDARTIST. This would become a user-defined one.
If you look for compatibility:
only very few players support multi-value fields.
only very few players support user-defined fields.