Those aren’t artists though… they’re genres, right? What am I missing?
I specifically have those kinds of compilations using those specific album artist tags.
This might be fixing itself now with my refresh going, or it might be working for some albums but not others.
For example, I just went to look for an example and found.
this is what I want and expected, so awesome right?
but then there is this example, where various should instead be ‘Techno’
I don’t doubt that you do. I guess that my librarian mind says you probably shouldn’t and expect it work ;^)
Of course, that doesn’t mean it won’t. Mostly. Or even perfectly. I just wouldn’t have expected it to…
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I don’t understand how you can think that your U2 example of a compilation should be any different that my using “Soundtrack” or “Techno” as an album artist.
Either
a) plex properly reads the album artist “U2” or “Soundtrack” and adds that to the library as such
or
b) plex matches it to the MBZ data and changes your “U2” or my “Soundtrack” to the more correct “Various Artists” (at least more correct according to MBZ 
).
or
c) does who knows what and puts it as “Various Artists” just because it can!
Because my librarian (and data model) brain says that “Soundtrack” and “Techno” are not of type “Album Artist” where as “U2” is. I would classify “Soundtrack” and “Techno” as type “Genre”.
Again, that doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t work but when a meta tag is repurposed for something else, I generally say: all bets are off.
In any case, good luck, I hope it works out for you!
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album artist is simply a logical construct to group related tracks, based up on a common album title.
“Various Artists” is not a real artist.
Plex should not know or care whether U2, or Various, or Soundtrack, or Techno, or Supercalifragilisticexpialidociousis a real album artist or not.
It should simply respect the album artist tags and not make assumptions.
No but it’s a real designation for that specific meta tag. I would argue that “Soundtrack” is not. And that’s really all I have to say about this 
Ok, but do you think this is, or should be, true ?
“Plex should simply respect the album artist tags (or any tagged field for that matter) and not make assumptions.”
Especially when ‘prefer local metadata’ is enabled ?
I understand, neither one of us is going to change ‘plex’ mind or behavior.
Also, what happens when the band “Various Artists” debut’s and screws up everyone’s music library ?
Since you are using embedded tags, what do you have for album artist? If you want them grouped into a “Techno” artist, that’s the tag it needs to have.
“Techno” is the album artist.
and since it/they are a compilation, each track will also have a separate and correct ‘artist’ tag.
PM me one of those tracks.
ok sure it will be later at home 
According to the test results above, your tags in mp3 files must be of the ID3v2.3 variety. ID3v2.4 will act erroneously.
Have you checked for that?
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I think the scanner just simply glitches once in a while. Doesn’t matter if it’s ID3 V2.3 or V2.4. After reading all of the troubles here with VA albums, I checked mine and found one album in Plex with only the Artist Title, no Track Title.
Checking the embedded metadata with MP3Tag finds they are ID3 V2.3, and the track titles are indeed there. Refresh metadata for the album, and the title appears.
I don’t know if it’s important, the album is one of many unmatched albums in my library, not available on MB or any place else.
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Another peculiar thing about this particular album - before the library was updated to the new version of Plex Music, the play history shows the tiles were available. The titles were lost on track plays after the upgrade.
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It should just work, as long as your library is already organized properly. Don’t count on Plex handling your Metadata, unless you only have top 40 music. For instance, I use Tag & Rename to handle metadata, so once you point Plex to the directory everything should already be organized and tagged. Don’t think I’ve ever read documentation for Plex, just trial and error.
I can’t load my music library into Plex because it creates to many files in the “Plex Database” which is just a complicated directory structure. I end up with so many files it bogs done virus checker, checkdisk, backups etc.
Do a right click and properties a see how many directories and files you have on your Plex Data directory. My machine never comes comes back with a number.
We need more features in the music side of it like genre stations and if you play a song from a artist a option that it keeps adding songs related to that artist in the play queued list! I was waiting so much for the new music features but wow what a let down.
In the good ol’ days it was called Plex Mix. Worked fantastic, in my opinion. I’ve had to resort to “Smart” playlists (never created one until a few months ago) and actually applying a rating to tracks (never did that before either)
The stations just don’t work, sorry. You need a 93,000,000 track library and a subscription to Tidal to make it work (no proof here, I have neither. just supposition)
I hear your grief, I like Mixes and I like Cover Art, I also like my Track Artist to be accounted for. Plex doesn’t do Mixes well at all. I have Hundreds of Mixes in their own folders, so to get around Plex not recognizing each Artist, especially since TIDAL can build on each Track…
I upload each Mix I want than make a Playlist with said tracks, now I got Mix the way I want it (Cover Art & Artist), TIDAL can now build a Playlist of each Track if I choose to.
#PlexMusic is one of my Primary Music apps since TIDAL came aboard!
