Singles support in the Music Library

I have many singles in my music collection – songs that were released independently of an album, or perhaps in parallel to an album release. As part of an album release, the single may be a particular edit (such as an edit for radio) and thus be somewhat different than the album version of the track. There’s also a whole heap of singles released that don’t end up on an album.

Singles and albums are different and it’s always irked me that music software tends to just lump the two together into a single listing, where you end up with hundreds of single-song “albums” in your listings. Of course, this is the same way XBMC has dealt with it. Until now.

Now, you have another option for your Singles, thanks to the suggestion by forum member thomash72. If you wish your singles to be separate from albums, then just remove the ALBUM tag from the track. XBMC treats any songs without an ALBUM tag as a single, and thus:

1. Album covers aren’t cached for these blank ALBUMs – instead we cache the thumb per song, so each single from the same artist can have it’s own covers.

2. The songs don’t show up in the Albums listing in the Music Library (after all, they’re not albums).

3. If you browse to an artist, then it’ll list all the albums by that artist and, in addition, will group the singles by that artist into a Singles folder.

4. Lastly, if you have any Singles in your music library, a new Singles item will be available in your Library listing.

Finally, a nice way to have your singles available in the library without them cluttering up the albums listing!