Weird Tidal Layout: Composition, My Library, Tidal

Core Machine (Operating system/System info/Roon build number)

Windows 10, Roon 1.7 build 555

Network Details (Including networking gear model/manufacturer and if on WiFi/Ethernet)
N/A

Audio Devices (Specify what device you’re using and its connection type - USB/HDMI/etc.)

N/A

Description Of Issue

For some artists, I get a strange layout of Composition, My Library, and Tidal. In the Tidal tab, there is a list of the artist’s songs. This is different from the typical layout that shows albums. Is there a reason for this? Is there some way to fix it? Screenshot below. Thanks.

What you are seeing is the list of compositions written by King as a Composer. If you had examples of tracks/albums performed by her in your Library, she would would be added as an Artist to your library, and then you would be able to switch views between Performer and Composer. The Performer view is similar to the Album view.

BTW, you can use the Filter icon (the Funnel icon on the top right of the screen) to filter the list of compositions down to a more manageable size.

Thanks for the reply. I’m still not following. I have looked at plenty of artists who are not in my library and they have shown up as performers and not composers. Also, I just happened to click on Carole King listed on an album with James Taylor and it displayed her in artist view not composer view. My question is if I don’t (ever) want composer view, is there a way to turn it off? Why would someone want a list of every song an artists ever wrote rather than album view? Sometimes I see buttons for “Performer” and “Composer” but sometimes not (image below). Why is that? Thanks for the help.

OK, there are two questions here, I think:

  1. Why are there sometimes buttons for Performer and Composer and sometimes not?
  2. What is the point of the Compositions view?

The answer to the first is pretty simple, but with an added wrinkle :slightly_smiling_face: There are several combinations of roles:

  • An Artist can be a Performer, but not a Composer. Here, on the Artist page, the Albums in which he/she has performed will be shown; those in the Library first (if any), followed by those available from the streaming services to which you are subscribed.
  • An Artist can be a Composer, but has never assumed the role of Performer. That is, never performed any compositions that have been released on an album (whether the composition is their own, or by another composer) - so this Artist is not a Performer, only a Composer. On this Artist’s page, only Compositions (composed by them) are shown.
  • An Artist can be both a Performer and a Composer, and here’s the wrinkle: if you have albums by the Artist in your library, then you will see the Performer/Composer buttons to select the Performance view (showing the albums/tracks) or the Composer view (showing the compositions). However, if you don’t have any albums by the artist in your Library, then you won’t see the Performer/Composer buttons - you will only see the Composer view.

This last wrinkle is considered a bug by the Roon Labs team, and a ticket is in to address it.

As you have found, if there’s a track in your library with the composer acting as a performer, and you select that, then the Performer/Composer buttons will then appear on the Artist page, so you can select the view you prefer.

Second question: what’s the point of the Composition view? Well, a composition is a different thing to the (potentially many) performances of that composition, and so then a Composition view is useful to list the performances.

Let’s take an example: Goin’ Back by Carole King:

You’ll notice that I have 5 performances of that composition in my library. Clicking on the entry shows me the albums where those 5 performances are:

The album “The Magic of Dusty Springfield” is listed twice, because that box set of 4 discs actually contains two different versions/arrangements of the “Goin’ Back” composition recorded by Dusty at different stages in her career.

Clicking on an entry in this list will take you directly to the album view and the track of this performance will be highlighted.

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Phew and allow the keyboard to rest :slight_smile:

I’m only trying to help :smile:

Roon has a rich UI, but the presence of bugs can easily sow confusion…

I get the help bit :joy:.
It was a really helpful explanation. I never use the composition view but the explanation helps understand what comes across as pretty weird behaviour.
One of roon’s little charms or horrendous mistakes depending on the viewer.

Geoff, thanks, that really helps. I appreciate the time you took to lay things out.

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