Add "Album Artist Year" sort order to full Music library

Feature Suggestions
1

I know that if I create a smart playlist or collection that I have the ability to sort albums in that collection/playlist by year. But, when I view my complete Music library, the best I can do is view by Album and sort by “Album Artist”. This sorting does group all albums by an artist together, but it does not put the albums in order by release year. It is killing my OCD. The library just does not look sorted without taking into consideration the date the album was released. So, I propose one of two options:

  1. Modify “Album Artist” sort order to also include release date as a hidden aspect of the sort.
  2. Add a new sorting option explicitly called “Album Artist Year”.

Either way, the sorting order (by priority) would be:

  1. Artist
  2. Album
  3. Year

This would put Music libraries viewed by Album in the right sorting order, as God intended and this constant itch my OCD keeps plaguing me with that I currently cannot scratch would be sated.

2

Just trying to figure out if I get your suggestion correct…
You’re asking for a music library displayed by albums to support a sort order where the albums are listed by…

  1. artist name
  2. album name
  3. album release date / year

This should sort same-named albums of the same artist by their release date.

Or are you asking for the albums to be sorted by…

  1. artist name
  2. album release date / year

There’s been a recent discussion regarding Plexamp pointing out that the app behaves slightly different from other Plex clients when it comes to sorting albums by artist (Plexamp: Artist > Release Date; other apps: Artist > Album Name). Elan has commented in that thread that they’ll start respecting the library option Album Sorting (which is currently only controlling how albums are sorted on an artist page) for the library being displayed by albums.

3

Okay, let me explain it this way.

I launch “Plex Media Server” and go to my Music Library. Up in the upper left just above the tiles showing my media, there are three drop down lists used to filter and sort my media. If I use “All” and “Albums” for the first two drop down lists, for the third I can select “By Album Artist”. If I select this option, then (for instance) my Alice in Chains albums sort as following:

  1. Dirt (1992-09-29)
  2. Facelift (1990-08-28)
  3. MTV Unplugged (1996-04-10)
  4. Nothing Safe∶ The Best of the Box (1999-06-29)
  5. SAP (1992-02-04)

So, it appears that “By Album Artist” groups by Artist, then sorts by album name. What I would like to see is:

  1. Facelift (1990-08-28)
  2. SAP (1992-02-04)
  3. Dirt (1992-09-29)
  4. MTV Unplugged (1996-04-10)
  5. Nothing Safe∶ The Best of the Box (1999-06-29)

So, I’m asking for group by artist and then sort by release date. In other words, add a sort option of “By Album Artist and Year” or some such name as that.

But, now that you are mentioning PlexAmp (I’m a new PlexPass member so haven’t been using it yet), I would say the same should apply to listing albums in PlexAmp.

Plus, like some other users I’ve seen posts from on the forums, I do like to listen and view my albums in chronological order. Sorting albums by name is not how I think of my collection. I think of it by year. When I’m looking for a particular album, I first look where the artist in question is grouped together and then I jump through the list to a spot roughly in the range where the album should be at by the order the albums were released.

Also, I don’t really use collections or playlists much since I prefer perusing my music collection like some will wander their wine cellars looking for the vintage that just feels right for the moment. So, while I know I can setup collections and get the sorting I’m looking for, I’d just rather see it in my full music library.

Speaking of collections and playlists, setting up Collections is working kinda wonky. If I make a static collection (so, manually select what albums to put into a given collection), the collection appears as I would expect, but takes more manual effort to keep it up to date. On the other hand, if I use a smart collection, then it appears as a Playlist, which I don’t like. But, I suspect that is a bug, which I’m going to report if I can’t find another post about it.

4

Seconding this request. It’s possible to force Plex to do this in the web app, which means the functionality is already there, all they need to do is add it to the GUI.

A workaround that works in every app is to edit the sort title, but when you have hundreds or thousands of albums that’s not a realistic option.

5

I am not sure if I have grasped what you are after, but can you not achieve this using the Advanced Filter option?
And by simply clearing “pink” I get all albums in year order - or even better switching from Year To Release Date is even better.

plex-pink
plex-pink1118×447 67 KB

6

I understand precisely what I am asking for. I don’t want to have to filter my library to isolate a group of albums so I can sort by year. I want the entirety of my library sorted by album artist year. When I say year, yes, I would prefer release date, but in the properties for an album, it does not show release date, just “year”. However, my library has been standardized by Musicbrainz, so the release date is available in the ID3 tags.

7

Wasn’t sure if I should revive this thread, or make a new request, but it is precisely what I would like Plex to do on both the web server view and in Plexamp.
From what I can tell based on Add "Album Artist Year" sort order to full Music library - #2 by tom80H, the album sorting in all views and apps is supposed to respect the selection in the Music -> Manage Library -> Advanced -> Album Sorting drop down menu, which for me is set to Oldest first.
However, this is not the behaviour in Plexamp or the Library view on the server; I go to a library view showing all albums, and then choose to sort by Album Artist, but then they are sorted alphabetically, rather than by year. I would like for the final stage of that sort to be by year, rather than alphabetical.

Essentially, for those who have chosen Oldest first as their preferred sorting album sorting, the all Albums view in both Plexamp and the Plex server Library should be sorted as: artist title, album year, rather than artist title, album title.

8

Jumping in to say this is also how I sort my physical collection of albums. By date/year released. So it’s also how I’d think of them sorted digitally. Would advocate for this.