Hi
Matt, I have always had 2 Album Artist fields too in FLAC files; here's a tag dump if interested
Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC)
44,1 kHz Sample Rate
16 Bits Per Sample
2 Channels
Min Block Size = 4608
Max Block Size = 4608
Min Frame Size = 14
Max Frame Size = 15573
Padding Block = 1329 bytes
# of Pictures = 1
Type 3 (105605 bytes)
Vorbis Comment Block (1193 bytes):
Vendor String = S
AccurateRipResult = AccurateRip: Accurate (confidence 2) [B921BABE]
AccurateRipDiscID = 010-000de68b-006f9f77-7308a20a-8
Source = CD (Lossless)
Encoded By = dBpoweramp Release 14.2
Encoder = FLAC 1.2.1
Encoder Settings = -compression-level-8 -verify
INTENSITY = 5
TRACKNUMBER = 8
TOOL NAME = Media Center
TOOL VERSION = 21.0.17
REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN = -7.00 dB
PEAK LEVEL (SAMPLE) = +0,0 dB; +0,0 Left; +0,0 Right
DISCNUMBER = 1
VOLUME LEVEL (R128) = -11,9950599670410156
COUNTRY = U.S.A.
STYLE = Neo-Traditionalist Country
REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK = 1.000000
DYNAMIC RANGE (DR) = 10
GENRE = Trad. Country
LAST PLAYED = 1374598998
ARTIST = Kelly Willis
ALBUMARTIST = Kelly Willis
ALBUM ARTIST = Kelly Willis
ORGANIZATION = Rykodisc
PEAK LEVEL (R128) = +0,8 dBTP; +0,8 Left; +0,7 Right
BPM = 85
DYNAMIC RANGE (R128) = 2,4476799964904785
DESCRIPTION = My Rip
GROUPING = Country
UPC = 014431062223
KEYWORDS = SR Rip
KEYWORDS = Swap
COMPOSER = Marcia Ball
ALBUM = Easy
VOLUME LEVEL (REPLAYGAIN) = -6,9950599670410156
ALBUM ARTIST SORT = Willis, Kelly
ARTIST SORT = Willis, Kelly
DATE = 2002
TITLE = Find Another Fool
I've always assumed this is because the rip was done externally and was remapped on import by JRiver .. as it takes nothing in space I've never been concerned about this personally but seem as how people have brought this up for other formats, just putting it out there.
On a semi-related note, MC does not display the album artist field (WMA) - it displays all albums in my collection as being by "various artists". It seems to be confusing Contributing Artist (of which there are always several per album) with Album Artist. Likewise, in MP3, multiple artists are incorrectly concatenated into one long string separated by "/".
I don't think this is incorrect; its just using a different separator -- the semi-colon. You can easily retag this using library tools replacing the "/" with a ";". A different formats, rippers/players etc; use different separators and tagging limitations, have to choose one out of the bunch, right? If memory serves, might be wrong tho, that Rovi and AllMusic use "/", itunes uses "\" and many others like picard, dbpoweramp, discogs use the ";" which is what I like best at least for Windows, because of the parsing possibilities, exporting into CSV txt files, HTML pages et al.
Sure you can have multiple artists using the separator, but if they are not the same for each track, then I also think it is normal with the existing "architecture" in JRiver that it works this way. (Album Artist+Album Name= Unique "grouping" criteria). Now maybe it would be cool if there were unique album IDs and a totally relational db, but it works pretty well considering that it has to manage all sorts of stuff manipulated externally. If you have say three artist for each track it will not show Various or Multiple Artists unless the Album Artist field is not filled out correctly (can't always rely on Album Artist (Auto) to do it for you IME). If you have an album artist where on certain tracks within an album, another artist is "featured". I solve this by putting them into Soloist (Vorbis Comment); some people I know use Performer for this (IPLS/TMLC -- neither exist for MP4/WMA but the latter works for Mp3s)
I blame this "convention" on itunes early domination, he he. Metadata is way to limited for my geekiness! Too bad the universe doesn't run on Vorbis Comment
or even using all available fields in ID3v2+ as standard would be a nice improvement.