This is a request for comprehensive support of the ID3/Vorbis tags that are necessary for truly meaningful and complete organization of music libraries, both classical and popular.

Here is what I hope will be a comprehensive list of the ID3 tags that are essential for digital music management (including special needs for classical music). For FLAC files, the Vorbis equivalents of these tags, if it exists, should be supported.

Tags which are necessary for complete management

Tags that Plex currently supports are marked with

Partially-supported tags marked with

Items that need to be added marked with

TALB Album/Movie/Show title TCOM Composer [multiple names separated by “/”] [Absolutely indispensable for classical music] TCON Content type [genre] [Needs to be on a per-TRACK basis] - [multiple genres (more than two) separated by “/”] TDOR Original release time TDRC Recording time [especially meaningful for classical music] (Plex uses this for “originally available at”) TDRL Release time TIT1 Content group description (See detailed description below) TIT2 Title/songname/content description [movement] (See detailed description below) TIT3 Subtitle/Description refinement (See detailed description below) TLAN Language(s) TPE1 Lead performer(s)/Soloist(s) [multiple names separated by “/”] TPE2 Band/orchestra/accompaniment [especially meaningful for classical music] (Plex is actually misusing the TPE2 tag for ‘Album Artist.’ See additional comments below.) TPE3 Conductor/performer refinement [especially meaningful for classical music] TPOS Part of a set [multi-disc albums, box sets] TSST Set Subtitle - Useful for box sets, audiobooks, collections TRCK Track number/Position in set TSOA Album sort order TSO2 Performer sort order TSOP Performer sort order (if TSO2 not found) TSOT Title sort order

There are 3 ID3 tags intended for titling tracks. Below is an excerpt from the ID3 (2.3) spec:

TIT1 - The 'Content group description' frame is used if the sound belongs to a larger category of sounds/music. For example, classical music is often sorted in different musical sections (e.g. "Piano Concerto", "Weather - Hurricane"). TIT2 - The 'Title/Songname/Content description' frame is the actual name of the piece (e.g. "Adagio", "Hurricane Donna"). TIT3 - The 'Subtitle/Description refinement' frame is used for information directly related to the contents title (e.g. "Op. 16" or "Performed live at Wembley").

As an example, consider the following classical composition by Tomaso Albinoni:

I have been using EasyTAG up to now, which only allows editing of TIT2 (and Plex only reads TIT2), so the tracks below all have the complete title in TIT2, while TIT1 and TIT3 are blank.

TIT1 │TIT2 │TIT3 │Concerto in G major, I. Allegro, Op 9 no 6 │ │Concerto in G major, II. Adagio (non troppo), Op 9 no 6 │ │Concerto in G major, III. Allegro, Op 9 no 6 │

Using Puddletag, MP3tag, or Picard, the tags can be populated as intended in the ID3 spec, which would look like this:

TIT1 │TIT2 │TIT3 Concerto in G major │I. Allegro │Op 9 no 6 Concerto in G major │II. Adagio (non troppo) │Op 9 no 6 Concerto in G major │III. Allegro │Op 9 no 6

However, when tagged this way, Plex only shows the track name as "I. Allegro," "II. Adagio (non troppo)," and "III. Allegro," which is not helpful when viewing track listings.

Since TIT1 and TIT3 rarely apply to non-classical music, Plex should ignore these fields when blank, only showing their content when populated.

There is no need to show the tags in tabular form. If it is simpler to implement, the content of the three tags could be concatenated, so the appearance would be identical to the current appearance.

Correct implementation of these Title fields would enable the additional option of displaying a composer’s works by composition (TIT1).

As I noted above, Plex is misusing and mislabeling the TPE2 tag. The ID3 spec actually has no field intended for ‘album artist.’ The ID3 tag Plex is using for ‘album artist’ is TPE2, which, in the ID3 spec, is intended for ‘Band/Orchestra/Accompaniment.’ This is not the same thing as ‘album artist.’

(Plex is not alone in this. Misuse of TPE2 for AlbumArtist dates back to the early days of Winamp and is widespread. If Plex is unwilling to buck that trend and use TPE2 as intended, a custom tag will have to be used for ‘Band/Orchestra/Accompaniment.’ Both tags are essential for classical music.)

My proposal to handle this and restore TPE2 to proper usage:

TPE2 is unmapped from AlbumArtist in Plex’s database, and correctly mapped to a new “Band/Orchestra/Accompaniment” field, as defined by the ID3 specification. This is essential for classical music.

AlbumArtist becomes a Plex-only field, auto-populated according to the following rules, or manually. If Artist (TPE1) is identical for all tracks on the album, then AlbumArtist = Artist. The ID3 spec requires that multiple artists may be added to the TPE1 tag, separated by a ‘/’ character. If the same artist appears on all tracks, then that artist becomes “Album Artist.” Artists that don’t appear on all tracks are listed as “featuring…”, or “with…” on track listings. If Artist (TPE1) is not identical on all tracks, OR the same artist does not appear on all tracks, then AlbumArtist = “Various Artists.” In this case, the Artist is identified on track listings (as is currently done).

If TPE1 lists multiple artists (Barbra Streisand/Bryan Adams, for example), an artist page is created for each artist, and both artist pages list the track. See “Appears On” section in Fig. 2 below for how this might look.

If Plex is not willing to buck the trend by implementing TPE2 correctly, then Plex should implement a new custom tag to do what TPE2 is supposed to do.

As always, users can override all these tags in the case of errors or unusual situations.

Single-artist album with featured guests: Various-Artist album:

Fig. 1

How the Artist Detail page might look:



Composers should receive similar treatment:



Nice to Have