Matching albums and editing the release year

[mrevenflow86]

Hey guys,

I’ve got several albums that are unmatched. Most of them are unmatched because it’s a smaller release or something, so that’s fine. But I’ve had to unmatch some well known albums because the release year changes if leave it which is very annoying. I’m a fan of keeping the original release year even on deluxe editions or anniversary editions.

For example then, I’ve got an album that was released in 1995, but because it’s the collector’s edition when matching up it changes the date to 2015.

Is there a way to match the album, but keep the original date?

Thanks

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[ChuckPa]

In your naming (directory structure), do you have the original release year in the name?

Album name (year)/
  disc N/
     01.  Track 1 on Disc N .ext

[mrevenflow86]

Hey @ChuckPa

No, I don’t. I have artist, then album name and disc folders if more than one disc.

Would having the album year added to the folder name fix it?

If so, I’ve got a lot of folders to amend, haha.

[ChuckPa]

Does this serve an an example?

  The Beatles - The U.S. Albums (2014)/

I use Picard for my music curation. I can edit how it renames everything.
I’ll share my curation rules if you like.

[danieldjs]

I use Tag Scanner to tag all of my music files, then I just tell Plex to look to my embedded tags.

[ChuckPa]

I’ve never found that to work for me (FLAC)

I prefer to remove the ambiguity by using a proper filename with matching minimal tag.

Frankly, I don’t trust tag editors.
Same goes for my other content too. I strip the embedded stuff and rely on the file name.

I have found, if the names are right, you don’t need tags PLUS it’s a lot faster.

[mrevenflow86]

I use use MusicBrainz too and the albums I’m having issues with have the metadata I want, it’s just when I match them in Plex the year changes to the new release year, instead of the original year that is tagged on the files.

I thought MusicBrainz might have been causing the issue, but after some testing, I don’t think it is.

[ChuckPa]

Can you give me some examples? I’ll create test files and see what happens when I run them through.

[mrevenflow86]

Ok, I’ve got the collectors edition of Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissette. This edition came out in 2015, but the original version came out in 1995. I tagged my files with the 1995 year and when checking them out in Plex it’s matching it to 2015.

I’ve currently unmatched it because I couldn’t find a way to have it matched with the 1995 year, even though in the fix match window it knows it’s 1995. I thought it was a bug. Though I’ve got other albums with a newer release year, but they come up fine. It just seems odd.

[ChuckPa]

Which variation should I use?

Jagged Little Pill

[leelynds]

coincidentally, I have “Jagged Little Pill” in a test library I created trying to solve another problem.

The files are tagged and matched with Picard, and the file structure is according to the Support Articles for the new music system Nowhere in those articles is it mentioned to include the year in the folder or filenames… I have the original release, so it shows up with the correct year.

When I re-tagged and re-matched it with Picard, but specifically selecting the collectors edition release as the source, the year now shows up as 2015.
https://musicbrainz.org/release/6066f529-1e87-43d5-8d5b-11a322bc4559

Tag editors add a lot of info, and the date is added in a lot of places, and not called the same thing, depending on the software you are using. Triing to track it down, these are the fields that the software I have shows for the same metadata for this album tagged to the Collectors Edition. They are MP3,s, but I don’t think that is relevant.

MusicBrainz Picard:
Date (2015-10-30), Original Release Date (1995-06-09), and Original Year (1995)
MP3Tag
YEAR (2015-10-30), ORIGYEAR (1995-06-09), and ORIGINALYEAR (1995)
ffprobe:
TYER: (2015-10-30), TORY (1995-06-09), and ORIGINALYEAR (1995)

It would seem that Plex chooses to use the TYER tag (from ffprobe) as the date. shown in “Edit” window for the album.

If Plex can read other tags (I don’t know which tags it actually uses) maybe there could be an option to use the ORIGINALYEAR or TORY tag when available.

[ChuckPa]

That would have to come as a feature request and surely would be a “bag of cats” problem given how music is recycled.

I think it’s a good idea if everyone wants to flush out the ideal functionality in a feature request.

When done, I will submit it to Engineering. I know they are always looking for ways to make music processing better.

[leelynds]

I’m pretty sure it’s been a long standing feature request.

Tag support for ROBUST music library organization

This is a request for comprehensive support of the ID3/Vorbis/etc. tags that are necessary for truly meaningful and complete organization of music libraries, both classical and popular. Here is what I hope will be a comprehensive list of the ID3 tags that are essential for digital music management (including special needs for classical music). For FLAC and other file formats, the appropriate equivalents of these tags, if they exist, should be supported. Tags which are necessary for complete ma…

[ChuckPa]

All of the music processing has been completely overhauled from the ground up.

If there is room now to augment, it’s appropriate.
A solid case would need be made.

Else, we’re left to this thread & topic to discern the finite details of how Little Jagged Pill and its release is best handled in hopes it provides insight for others.

[leelynds]

My workaround for releases like this, is to tag the the tracks from the original album with all of the original year info, and the extra tracks with the year and album title from the new release. I end up with two albums, one with only the original tracks, and one with the only the additional tracks from the new release. Maybe not ideal for all, but it works for me.

[mrevenflow86]

@ChuckPa Thanks for the updates. So how do we go about making a solid case? I’ve got other albums this happens with and it’s annoying.

@leelynds Thank you for the research. I’m not a massive fan of your workaround as I like to keep releases together. Is there a way to completely remove metadata from tracks? Maybe on the albums that are giving me trouble I can edit in Kid3 audio tagger instead of MusicPicard and just keep the essential stuff.

[leelynds]

I tried just changing any reference in the embedded tags to the original year, and Plex still holds onto the Collector’s Edition release date now. Perhaps the “Plex Dance” would fix it.

Since we don’t know what embedded tags Plex actually uses, it might be picking up one of the tags that Picard adds like CATALOGNUMBER, BARCODE, MUSICBRAINZ_ALBUMID, MUSICBRAINZ_DISCID

In Picard, you can remove all tags by selecting the “Album”, then selecting all of the tags, then right click to select “Remove” or “Alt+Shift+R” . That’s in windows, but I’m sure there’s an equivalent procedure in your OS.

[mrevenflow86]

@leelynds thanks. I might try a “Plex Dance”. I’ve never done it before.

I found this topic on it

The Plex Dance ™

The purpose of this is to remove all cached metadata and xml data for an item that Plex usually keeps. This helps when you want to “start from scratch” for particular item move all files for the media item out of the directory your Library is looking at, so Plex will not “see” it anymore scan the library library (to detect changes) empty trash clean bundles (in menu next to server name, when accessed under ‘More’) double check naming schema and move files back scan the library Support articl…

Just not sure on step 3, 4 and 5. Where would I find those settings?

[leelynds]

You can find the “Empty Trash” and “Scan Library Files” by clicking on the three dots beside the library in Plex Web.

“Clean Bundles” is in the settings for the server. Click the little tool icon in Plex web, scroll down to Manage --> Troubleshooting .

I don’t think you have to clean bundles for music files. Just “Empty Trash” At least that’s worked for me.

Make sure you do it in the exact order, or it won’t work.

Make sure any process is complete before going to the next step. (the activity icon will stop spinning) Steps 5 is to correct any mis-named files (probably not needed in your case) Step 6 forces a re-scan of the library after you move the files back into Plex. You only need to do that if you have disabled any settings for Plex to automatically scan libraries.

[mrevenflow86]

@leelynds great, thanks for that. I will give it a go when I next get the chance.