Plex forces artist name change

Plex Media Server Metadata & Adding Files
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Server Version#: 1.29.2.6364-7000
Player Version#: 4.87.2 (PlexAmp 4.8.3 iOS)

Computer: MacBook Pro
Operating System: macOS Big Sur 11.7.4
NAS Storage: Synology DS920+
NAS Operating System DSM7
Browser: Safari 16.3.1 / Firefox 111.0.1 (64 bit)
iPhone XS Max / iOS 16.3.1

Hello fellow Plexaholics & Plexiofiles…

I am experiencing an issue where Plex finds an artist name that it prefers (maybe drawing from some online source) and forcibly changing my artist “album artist” name.

Let me give examples:

  1. There is an electronic artist called “Vangelis”… some of his albums are released under that name, while others are released under “Vangelis Papathanassiou” and still others are released under “Vangelis O. Papathanassiou.” I am a stickler for using the name the album was actually released with so I use all 3 distinctions… Plex forces these to all be simply “Vangelis” and nothing I have been able to do will allow this change to stick.
  2. The artist “The Cosmic Jokers” is ALWAYS forced to be “Galactic Supermarket” because that is an alternate name for this artist.
  3. Junkie XL is ALWAYS forced to Tom Holkenborg because that is the DJ’s real name.

I use prefer local metadata ONLY and have tried re-tagging, doing the plex dance, using a “sort artist” name… every trick I can think of and Plex simply WILL NOT use my preferred names.

None of the other services I have tried are anywhere near as good as Plex, but none of the other ones (Roon, Audirvana, Jellyfin, etc) do this same forced artist name behavior.

Anyone who can offer help on this, I would really appreciate it. Driving me crazy.

Thanks in advance.

2

You will have to live with it. It is the same artist after all.

All you can do is to tag the TrackArtist with the name under which the album was released. While keeping the AlbumArtist at “Vangelis”.
That way you will at least see the proper artist name when playing one of the affected albums.

3

If there is a setting for Plex to simply “read my metadata tags” then where does the override come from? Pretty bizarre to me how selective it is since it does not do this with many other artists who use a variety of names to release their material.

Thanks for the time.

4

Are these albums stored in a folder hierarchy like this:

/Music
   /AlbumArtist
      /AlbumTitle
         01 - TrackArtist - Tracktitle.mp3
         02 - TrackArtist - Tracktitle.mp3
         03 - TrackArtist - Tracktitle.mp3 
         ...

?

And if so, does every name variation of Vangelis have its own dedicated AlbumArtist folder?

5

My hierarchy looks nearly identical with the one exception being there is no track artist in the file name…

/Music
/AlbumArtist
/AlbumTitle
01 - TrackTitle.flac
02 - TrackTitle.flac
03 - TrackTitle.flac

And so on… Every one of my specific “Album Artist” names has its own individual folder.
When I load an album, Plex will add it to the library, and for a brief moment, it will appear on the screen with the correct info… then the screen will flash and it will update to whatever Plex thinks the name should be.

And I always have every single track in my collection tagged with the proper artist name for each individual track, and then the album artist name for that particular album tagged accordingly “Artist” vs “Album Artist.”

It’s not the end of the world, just irritating when there is a specific setting to just read local metadata, and then the program overrides with its own information anyway.

And with Vangelis (and the variations of his actual name) I can sort of understand it.
Changing “The Cosmic Jokers” to “Galactic Supermarket” or “Junkie XL” to “Tom Holkenborg,” to me is not understandable… no idea why Plex would forcibly pull alternate names like that if it’s just reading tags.

If you think of anything that can help, please let me know.

6

Look them up at musicbrainz.org
All artists are matched to artist records on there. If MB thinks, two artists are one and the same, then Plex will assign the same artist ID. Which will merge all artists which have the same ID.

7

Thanks again for the info.
It is what it is at this point, but FWIW…

“The Cosmic Jokers”

This is just as I have them all labeled, and MB says there is no artist called “Galactic Supermarket” from what I can find. Would be nice for Plex to recognize this at least, if it’s reading from MB.

Secondly:
MB does in fact see Junkie XL as Tom Holkenborg so that mystery at least is solved…
Not to my liking, but at least I know the source of where it’s coming from.

“Tom Holkenborg”

Anyway, this is just about my only gripe with Plex or PlexAmp… still the absolute best server and player in the business. I’ll figure out a way to live with it.

Thanks for the help.

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