To truly manage multiple artists, I use a custom field Artists, set to store multiple values, delimited by semi-colons. Then I put it in views where MC expands each Artists field value into a separate virtual instance of the record -- very powerful.
Notice, I'm using two fields -- the standard single-value Artist field, and a custom multi-value Artists field. Each has a different purpose and often, different data.
In the standard Artist field I store the exact performed-by name from the original recording. So, across a particular artist's career, this name might vary quite a bit, but that's OK. I only "see" the Artist field when playing music in MC or on an iPod, where seeing the performer as on the original recording is exactly appropriate.
To standardize artists names, identify multiple artists on a single recording, and and manage and easily find recordings, I use a separate custom Artists field. In my custom Artists field I store the artist name in a standardized format, Lastname, Firstname, "and" as "&", and a group name always written the same way. I omit leading "The" and similar rather than leave it to MC. I convert a number in a group's name to a word, etc. So for each performer, group or individual, I have one standard way to write the name in my Artists field. This assures that all recordings with that same standard name will be grouped together.
If there are multiple artists to identify for a recording, I store them all in the Artists field all as a list. I then have this column in my various views, giving me lots of ways to access and work with the recordings. If this column is the first in a view, it creates virtual entries, one for each value in the field. (Actually, my Artist view has field Artists as the first two columns, the first column set to Grouping size 1, so I get a two-level view like this:
Artist
A
B
Beatles
Beach Boys
Bryson, Peabo
Burrell, Kenny
C
D
etc
Simple example: A recording of Rich Girl has Artist field "Hall and Oates". But I'd like to find the recording by the group name, and by the individual artists. So in the Artists field I enter "Hall & Oates;Hall, Daryl;Oates, John". In a view with Artists as the first column, I'd see this one record in three places, by Hall & Oates, by Hall, Daryl, and by Oates, John. This is a simple example of one-track-to-many artists.
The technique is also helpful with many-to-many, such as tracking recordings by The Boston Pops under various conductors such as Arthur Fiedler and John Williams, and those conductors with various orchestras including The Boston Pops, London Sympony, and others. Having a multi-value Artists field is a terrific way to organize jazz recordings where the same major artists appeared on each others recordings, and in groups with other names, and in their own groups with a variety of variations (Trio, Quartet, Quintet, Group, Band, whatever).
I use the Keywords field in the same way to categorize every song for later use in all kinds of combinations in smartlist expressions.
