How can I get rhythmbox to see that different albums with the same name are different?

Solution 1:

Out of the box, rhythmbox does not have the ability to differentiate between different "greatest hits" albums because it treats album titles as the unique identifier.

Through the rhythmbox plugin coverart-browser, we treat both the album-title AND the album-artist as the unique identifier.

As the picture shows - two artists with the same "greatest hits" titles but the albums are shown separately since the two albums are by different artists.

You should note - when ripping CD's, often the album-artist is not ripped and is left blank.

Worse still, for multi-artist albums (compilations), both the album-artist and artist fields are also left empty. Thus you can be left with two albums with exactly the same title.

The trick here is to select all the tracks for an album, right-click and choose properties and then fill in the album-artist field to make it unique

See the links below for installation instructions.

Linked Question:

• How to browse by album art in rhythmbox?
• How do I install third-party rhythmbox plugins?

Solution 2:

I have seen this problem on a variety of systems and with different players and the only solution I have come up with is to name the albums prefixed by the artist.

For example:

"Red Hot Chilli Peppers Greatest Hits " instead of just "Greatest Hits".

I know its a lot of work but if someone has a better way I would love to hear it.