Improve Artist View - Separate Artist Solo from Artist&Band Albums - eg, Prince, Tom Petty, Elvis Costello, Springsteen

Feedback Feature Suggestions
1

Hi there.

Currently where a primary artist has both solo albums as well as albums with a backing band (e.g., Prince/ Prince & The Revolution, Tom Petty/ Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers), there is some redundancy in the Roon artist view presentation, and room to improve how that artist’s albums with supporting bands are displayed as well as overall searchability.

For example, Prince has solo albums credited only to “Prince” and other band albums credited to “Prince & The Revolution”. Roon generally will create 2 primary artist views: “Prince” and “Prince and The Revolution” – each showing their respective credited albums. With proper tagging, the band albums also will appear in the solo Prince artist view under a ‘With Prince & The Revolution’ section.

However, in the solo Prince Artist view, it’s redundant to show the ‘Prince &’ for the band albums. Can an option be added to make this just show in a ‘With The Revolution’ (omitting the ‘Prince &’) section? This will effectively enable the solo Prince Artist View to segregate and separately show the Prince solo albums, as well as separately show the albums with (each of) his bands.

Ideally, taking it one step further, the Prince & The Revolution albums could be setup in Roon with 2 primary artists: “Prince” and “The Revolution” and somehow Roon would display these band albums under the solo Prince Artist View in a ‘With The Revolution’ (again, omitting the ‘Prince &’) section, rather than under solo Prince “Main Albums” section as Roon currently does. This would be my preferred solution if possible - as it would preserve “The Revolution” as a separate searchable artist. This strikes me as the cleanest and most versatile/searchable way to show artists who perform under their own name as both a solo artist and with a supporting band.

(BTW, Other affected artists include: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Bruce Hornsby & The Range, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, and many more.)

Phew! Hope this is clear. Thanks.

2

Not sure I fully follow your thinking. My preference, FWIW, is to have all Prince releases together, solo and with a band, when I search for Prince. Same for Springsteen and other artists. When I see them separate, I use the merge function.

Separating these out as an option, if feasible.

Though I think it is inconsistent now. Some end up together, some separated.

3

Let me see if I can distill this down.

Where an artist performs solo and with a band or bands (like Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Price & The Revolution, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, etc…), can albums be displayed as follows?

Under Artist View: Bruce Springsteen

  • ‘Main Albums’ - albums where ‘Bruce Springsteen’ is the only album primary artist. (eg., studio albums)
  • ‘Singles & EPs’ - same
  • ‘Bootlegs’ - same (but see comment below)
  • ‘With The E Street Band’ - albums where both ‘Bruce Springsteen’ and ’The E Street Band’ are album primary artists (eg., live albums)
  • ‘With The Sessions Band’ - albums where both ‘Bruce Springsteen’ and ’The Sessions Band’ are album primary artists
  • ‘Appearances’ - anywhere Bruce Springsteen appears where not credited as an album primary artist

Maybe there should also be a ‘Live’ section as well.

The main open question I see with the above, is how to classify bootlegs where both ‘Bruce Springsteen’ and ’The E Street Band’ are primary artists. Would they appear in the ‘Bootlegs’ section or the ‘With… “ section, or both?

If Roon can’t currently display in this format, hopefully we’ll see this as a new feature in Roon 2.0! Consider it a feature request.

Thanks.