# C'mon iTunes, learn to alphabetize **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 16, 2012, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946 "2012-04-16T13:33:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/21 "2012-04-17T21:28:30Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > My point is that “Name” and “Sort Name” are different things, and hopefully sorting by “Sort Name” will solve your problem, since presumably there’s a chance that there’s a different algorithm or set of sort rules. I don’t currently have access to an iTunes library, so I can’t test it out for you - but I apparently incorrectly assumed that you wouldn’t need such an excessive amount of handholding. As I noted in the OP, the sort fields work most of the time, so “The Beat of My Heart” is sorted among the Bs and not the Ts. ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/22 "2012-04-17T22:19:17Z")
They don’t have a field for the composer of classical music. The “artist” field might have the name the composer, the conductor, or a soloist. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/23 "2012-04-17T22:28:30Z")
> [@thirdname](#): > > They don’t have a field for the composer of classical music. The “artist” field might have the name the composer, the conductor, or a soloist. There is a composer field separate from the artist field in iTunes. Though a lot of the songs in the iTunes store list the composer’s name in the Artist field. There is also an Album Artist field separate from the Artist field, for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/24 "2012-04-17T23:16:39Z")
You’re complaining about _that_, not about alphabetizing artists by their \*first \*names? Really? ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/25 "2012-04-17T23:28:37Z")
No, I’m complaining that iTunes sorts everything incorrectly, whatever field you choose to sort by. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/26 "2012-04-17T23:39:30Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Since a second person has come along now and said their iTunes sorts differently, I just took a screen shot and [stuck it on Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/12544059@N03/7087810205/in/photostream/lightbox/) so you can see I’m not delusional or bullshitting. You can even see that it’s sorting in ascending order from the up arrow in the column heading. I just checked in iTunes myself. I don’t see the same thing you do either. It goes in this order: “I(followed by space)” then “I(hypen)” then “I(period)” then “I(single quote)” e.g. I see I Yust Go Nuts At Christmas I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag … I. Andante … I’d Love To I checked, and for all those tracks the “Sort name” field is empty. I can’t explain why you see what you see. ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/27 "2012-04-17T23:46:13Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > And if a song title starts with the words “A” or “The” it gets sorted by the next word in the title, which might be ok if the sort field got correctly populated every time you add such a song – but it doesn’t always populate correctly, So if you add a bunch of titles at once you may find yourself having to go in any manually do the work that it was supposed to do. I think this was explained before, but this is not a problem with iTunes, this is a problem with the Apple Music store (assuming you bought those songs from there), or from the Gracenote database that is used to populate track info when you import into iTunes. iTunes sorts song titles starting with "The " or "A " by the next word _if_ someone has taken the trouble to put in something in the “Sort Name” field. e.g. in my library there is a song called “The Air That I Breathe”. But the Sort Name field contains the text “Air That I Breathe”, so when I sort by name, it is sorted with “Air”, not with “The”. If the Sort Name field was blank, it would be sorted under “The”. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/28 "2012-04-17T23:47:00Z")
What version of iTunes are you whining about? Here are the current sort rules: [Official Apple Support](http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2642) ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/29 "2012-04-17T23:49:27Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Having said this, I went in and tried your suggestion, and it makes no difference. I did notice one odd thing, though. Probably 99% of the “Sort Name” fields are blank – only those with actual names beginning in “A” or “The” get populated. And it turns out the sorting by “Sort Name” doesn’t _really_ sort by that field. If it did, all the empty fields would sort to the top or bottom. But in fact, the sort remains identical to sorting by “Name”. As far as I can tell, here’s how iTunes sorts: if you sort by “Name” or “Sort Name” it does the exact same thing. It sorts by this “calculated field”: order with (value from “Sort Name” if it’s not blank, otherwise value from “Name”) ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/30 "2012-04-17T23:51:31Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > What version of iTunes are you whining about? > > Here are the current sort rules: [Official Apple Support](http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2642) And now that I read this, it looks like iTunes, when sorting, might ignore "The " from the beginning even if the corresponding sort field is blank, e.g. it does this automatically? I’ll play around with it later. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/31 "2012-04-17T23:53:32Z")
> [@Arnold\_Winkelried](#): > > I think this was explained before, but this is not a problem with iTunes, this is a problem with the Apple Music store (assuming you bought those songs from there), or from the Gracenote database that is used to populate track info when you import into iTunes. > iTunes sorts song titles starting with "The " or "A " by the next word _if_ someone has taken the trouble to put in something in the “Sort Name” field. > > e.g. in my library there is a song called “The Air That I Breathe”. But the Sort Name field contains the text “Air That I Breathe”, so when I sort by name, it is sorted with “Air”, not with “The”. > If the Sort Name field was blank, it would be sorted under “The”. This isn’t just an iTunes store issue. I get lots of music from other sources, including recording them directly from streaming online sources. In those cases, I personally fill in the meta-data associated with the music files, and when I add them to iTunes, iTunes itself (usually) automatically populates the sort fields if either the artist or title name begins with _A_ or _The_. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/32 "2012-04-17T23:53:58Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > There is also an Album Artist field separate from the Artist field, for some reason. Because sometimes the artist for an album is different than the artist for a particular track. This most common with compilations or soundtracks, which often have “various artists” as the album artist but it can also be true of some albums as released. For “Decade” I have Neil Young as the album artist but many of the individual tracks have, say, Buffalo Springfield or CSNY as artists. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2012, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/33 "2012-04-17T23:56:41Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Because sometimes the artist for an album is different than the artist for a particular track. This most common with compilations or soundtracks, which often have “various artists” as the album artist but it can also be true of some albums as released. > > For “Decade” I have Neil Young as the album artist but many of the individual tracks have, say, Buffalo Springfield or CSNY as artists. For a Broadway show soundtrack or an opera I might have, say, Original Cast of This Great Show or Cleveland Symphony/Joe Smith (cond.) as the album artist but the soloists or feature performers as the individual track artists. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/34 "2012-04-18T00:00:38Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > What version of iTunes are you whining about? > > Here are the current sort rules: [Official Apple Support](http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2642) Version 10, and every earlier version that I’ve ever had in the last 5 years. And though I appreciate that you found that article, it doesn’t even mention what I’m griping about – titles starting with contractions, and putting “I’m” before “I”. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/35 "2012-04-18T00:12:56Z")
Can you post a screenshot? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/36 "2012-04-18T00:17:20Z")
The music system where I used to work was set up so that if the artist’s name had a comma in it, e.g. “McCartney, Paul”, the system would remove the comma and reverse the word order, so that the display on the box would read “Paul McCartney”. This worked fine until it played a CSNY song one day and billed the artist as “Stills, Nash, and Young Crosby.” ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/37 "2012-04-18T00:33:04Z")
> [@beowulff](#): > > Can you post a screenshot? pssst - see post 14 ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/38 "2012-04-18T02:39:15Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > … what I’m griping about – titles starting with contractions, and putting “I’m” before “I”. I’ve been frustrated with this, too. But I have a theory: when minor shit’s bugging me, I stop and realize that if I have time to get my undies in a bundle about little things, there must be some huge things that aren’t going wrong. So: **Pissed about alphabetizing** = **Not pissed because zombies are burning your dog.** ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/39 "2012-04-18T03:48:46Z")
Just confirmed the OP. My iTunes on the computer alphs just the way he says. But on my phone, it sorts songs correctly. Weird. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946/40 "2012-04-18T04:00:44Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Just confirmed the OP. My iTunes on the computer alphs just the way he says. But on my phone, it sorts songs correctly. > > Weird. I don’t have an iPhone, but my iPod sorts just like my iTunes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cmon-itunes-learn-to-alphabetize/618946.md?page=3)