It's useful to know disc numbers and track numbers when talking to others about music, and it's most certainly true that an album is a work in itself. In fact, that is one of the primary things I'm interested in when I listen to music.

The year tag is useful if you want some period context but don't have access to books or the internet to look up that context yourself, but that said, I don't really make sure my year tags are perfect. They definitely are good enough to serve the purpose I mentioned most of the time, but I would never rely on them (mine) for accurate information. I could easily stop maintaining the year, but I like having it there filling the empty space that would be there as an alternative.

EDIT: Even genre is something I could do without, because I don't have a canon of music that I associate with each genre that appears in my library. There are a few albums that are definitely this or definitely that, but a lot of the time the line is so shaky that it's not worth paying attention to genre (in my opinion, and in my library).

I number the tracks as <track-on-disc>, not <track-on-album> as well as adding <number-of-tracks-on-disc> and <number-of-discs>. Itunes autonames the files as "<disc>-<tracknumber> <tracktitle>", and shows the disc number in the tracklist , so even if I decide to move the files manually they're easily sorted.

What about albums like the Styx's Kilroy Was Here or Swedish Egil's Trancemission? Albums that were most definitely meant to be listened to as a whole and not simply a collection of songs?

Merged to a single file?

Unless the player in question doesn't do .cue files - a playlist seems a more universal solution as most players has some variation of them and it seems to serve pretty much the same purpose.

First, yes, fill the artist album tag.
Secondly, I personnally use foobar along with the musicbrainz plugin to tag my files, this way I have in handy a lot of information.

I personnally use the following filename scheme :

Album Artist/Year - Album/(Disc Number ((Disc Subtitle)) -) Track Number - Track Artist - Track Title.extension

The disc number and subtitle only show if they are available.


Also, yes musicbrainz happens to be wrong or missing some artists/albums, but that's the whole reason while anyone can edit it, so you can correct it.
So correct it if you find a mistake.

If the compositions / tracks are connected, that sucks big time! I can't understand why some producers would do that, but hey, it is their own music.

They could have easily made the whole "album" one very lasting track, instead of cutting sections and naming them differently.

No, they can still be separate tracks, but intended to be heard in the context of the whole album. Your experience of a track is affected by the previous track and the way it affected your mood. But I can see that you obviously listen to and think of music in an extremely different way to me so I'm gonna stop talking now. :P

EDIT: There are some albums where the tracks segue between each other. In this case, think of the tracks like chapters in a book. They don't work on their own but we still divide them up.

Yea, that's why I stay away from albums, unless I know the album / compilation has all of the tracks in their full length, and are separated / unmixed. :)

Anyway, for the OP, check out MP3Tag, nice little app for tags management. :)

Any album should be considered like that. I mean when a group or an artist makes an album, the tracks speak of the same mind state in a way, even if they have different subjects and atmosphere.

That's one of the reason I prefer to listen to actual albums and not compilation.
(And I always try to listen to an album in its entirety the first time I listen to it).

I'd have already gone completely insane trying to manage my library if it wasn't for Mp3tag. Actions? Brilliant!

I agree with you 100%. When I get a new albums I always set aside 40+ minutes to listen to it in its entirety and even on my mp3 player I usually queue up whole albums rather than put it on shuffle. I wish there was some kind of album shuffle (so it picks an album at random, plays it in order and then randomly picks another and so on).
Ditto!