WMC Music still using Album Artist not Contributing Artsts

[Crocboy]

Hi all,
New to the forum. I'm 65 and have spent the last few days searching the Web for a solution to my Music Library issue in WMC.
I have used WMC together with MyMovies DK for many years now on both Vista and WIN7. Now also on WIN 8.1 with no issues.
Now I have decided to purchase a Surface Pro 3 for my tablet use. So I thought I could use WMC for my music experience.
I have spent the last few months updating all my music folders with the correct tags; ie Song, Title, Contributing Artist, Album Artists etc etc Huge job to say the least. My Compilation Albums use "various" as the Album Artists and "artist name" in Contributing Artist.
All my music files are loaded on my SP3 in My Music library and all works great on WMP12.
The problem I have is that when I view by "Artist" in WMC it displays me the "Album Artist" not the "Contributing Artist" thus missing out on all my Artists on Various Compilations Albums. (Again this works fine in WMP12)
I spoke to Microsoft and they said you could only ever search/view "Artist" in WMC using the "Album Artist" tag. Google search confirms this is an issue for those with Various Compilation Albums.
There was one post, however, that stated a workaround for this issue and re-directed my to another post that had been taken down.
The jest of it was and I quote: "There's a workaround in (setting the Album Artist metadata field to a null value) that forces WMC to then start considering the Contributing Artist metadata field instead of just ignoring it. That works for me."
Now this means nothing to me and I was hoping someone here could steer me in the right direction.
Any help appreciated.

[ewtaylo]

I would be interested in seeing anything you find on this topic. And I can not contribute an answer directly.

Have you tried doing what the quote says and just blank out the Artist field while leaving the contributing artist field populated? Maybe you can try it on a few albums that has been set to "various" to see if it makes WMC do something different.

[Crocboy]

Thanks for your help, I appreciated it. At least something to go on is better than nothing. Sometimes it just needs someone else to see what you can't see.

I tried what you suggested and by gee it does work. At least I now have access to all my Albums, Artists, and Songs. The only thing that doesn't work is the "Album Artist" view; it shows each artists having a separate Album, but I'm not overly concerned with that.
All my music is now viewable; searchable; and playable through Windows Media Center. I didn't want to have to use WMP12 as the letters are too small to make it work in Tablet Mode.

Still leaves the question of why Microsoft can't fix this issue with the Artists fields? I paid $9.99 to have the privilege of being able to use WMC on Windows 8.1; it was Free on all other versions of Windows. Ohh well, I read that WMC may soon no longer be available at all.

Thanks again for your help.
Cheers John

[ewtaylo]

Microsoft could fix it if it fit into their grand scheme of things. Unfortunately it does not appear that it will. WMC is a dead project and that causes much sadness to all of the members of this community who hold it very dear to themselves. I find it to be a wonderful manner to watch live and recorded TV.

I am very glad that the work around is working for you.

[Rainey]

Just my 2 cents.

I think it is working like it should.
First you should be adding the track artist to the "artist" field.
For albums with various artists, you add "Various" to the album artists field.
Contributing Artist is for when some one else also Contributes to the track.

So when you have a compilation album, you add the artist for each track to the "Artist" field, and put "Various" in the Album artist field.
For an album of many track all by the same artist, then put that artist in both fields.