We're still thinking on this one.
The problem I'm trying to solve is that I've seen many libraries where every song has 'Album Artist' set to the same value as 'Artist'. I think iTunes and Amazon may tag this way.
This leads to bad search suggestions. If you type 'nat', you'll see 'Natalie Merchant (Artist)' and 'Natalie Merchant (Album Artist)' at the top, and maybe 'Nat King Cole (Artist)' and 'Nat King Cole (Album Artist)' second. In my opinion, it would be nicer to see four different suggestions.
I assume the answer is yes, but is it slower to use
[Album Artist (auto)] in a search?
All of my tracks have the Artist field filled out of course, and I would say that most also have Album Artist filled out - though recently I've been leaving it alone if Album Artist (Auto) gets it right.
In probably 90% of cases Album Artist matches Artist.
However on compilations, Album Artist is going to be (Various Artists) in most cases, or whoever created the compilation. (e.g. "Ministry of Sound")
Remixes or collaborations will have the same Album Artist as the rest of the album, but Artist will have all artists that worked on that track.
An example of the latter might be "Under Pressure" which is a collaboration between Queen and David Bowie. The album artist is Queen, but the artist field is
Queen; David Bowie.
I only want that showing up if I search for Queen, not when I search for David Bowie.
I don't want any Queen tracks that show up on compilation albums when I search for Queen either, only albums by Queen.
And if I wanted to include tracks where David Bowie was a collaborator, or on a compilation album, rather than albums by David Bowie then I would do a specific Artist search, rather than Album Artist.