ok I loaded the out of the box view and its "main sort field or tag is indeed on the Album Artist NOT the Artist.
So if you are getting "unassigned" it is because the Album Artist field is empty. Just fill it in using the tagging window. If you need to know how see the wiki please
If you want to create a view based only on artists (good for finding things on compilation albums etc., thats pretty easy to do later on.
So lets take some examples using Jimi H and going a little further
Woodstock - lots of Artists - including Hendrix. The album is a multiple or various artist album right? If nothing is either in the Album Artist tag or [Album Artist (auto)] field did not fill out correctly (read the links I posted for info), the album could be split up and you'd have 20+ versions of the same album cover on the screen - not great. Hendrix has two or three songs that would be grouped together. If the Album Artist tag was the same for the whole album (eg "Various Artists" it would show up underone album cover. K?
Lets say you have a compilation album of Hendrix some tracks may say the Artist tag = The Jimi Hendrix Experience some may just Jimmy Hendrix or they might say Jimmy Hendrix, Buddy Miles, Billy Cox (for the live Band of Gypsies album). As mentioned to avoid difficulties you should have one "Album Artist" so for example you would probably just put Jimi Hendrix in to keep it together.
Then you have some where you actually have to choose eg; Featuring Norah Jones where she has everyone from Dave Grohl to Q-Tip to Dolly Parton. Is the Album Artist Norah Jones or is it simply a Various Artist record ... I use Norah Jones personally, but JRiver will still consider it to be a multiple artist album unless (if I remember correctly) 70% of the tracks have the same artist. Now if by using a separator ";" in JRiver and all of the tracks have more than one artist BUT they are the same it will come out as a single artist album. Again using Band of Gypseys as an example Jimmy Hendrix; Buddy Miles; Billy Cox were in the tag box Artist for every track then the artist would be all three names -- useful for albums like the ones with John McGlaughlin, Al Di Meola, Paco di Lucia.
Personally I always rip so the Album Artist Field is populated. You can also use the auto method described in the links too of course. If the Album Artist tag (field) has a value, the Album Artist(auto) field will automatically retain that value so you can use the stock views. It does not auto fill in the other direction however.
Not so sure "what you should be looking for", but highly recommend either looking at the wiki to understand Views and tagging and maybe look at Vincent's site which has a bunch of info to reduce the time needed for the learning curve
http://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/ for more advanced topics on tagging.
Oh last thing don't let iTunes mess with your library and "consolidate it" if by chance you have it running. If you absolutely need to have itunes, let it use YOUR library, not the other way around!
