Album Artist and compilation albums

[Carson Dyle]

I've always tagged every track in my music library with an ALBUMARTIST tag (using TPE2 in ID3v2 tags).  Tracks on albums by a single artist have both ARTIST and ALBUMARTIST set to that artist.  Compilations get an ALBUMARTIST of _Various Artists (which sorts to the top of the Album Artist list).

This works exceptionally well with Rockbox.  Browsing by Album Artist doesn't have all the one-track artists from compilation albums, but I can still find them if I want by browsing by Artist.

But I'm curious...  Most people don't add ALBUMARTIST/TPE2 tags to every album.  Are any artists not specifically found in an ALBUMARTIST tag listed under 'Album Artist'?  That is, if Rockbox catalogs a track with just an ARTIST tag, does that artist also become the album artist?

Is there any special handling of compilation albums by Rockbox?  The way I have the library tagged, I can easily find all compilations under the "_Various Artists" album artist.  But again, not everyone is quite so anal.  If I browse the database by Artist and find a one-track artist, then drill down through the album to the tracks, it only shows the tracks by that artist, and playing the track only adds that track.  This is good.  But I'm wondering how you would find and play the entire album if you do _not_ use a special ALBUMARIST for your compilations.  Other than using the file system, is browsing albums the only way?

[Carson Dyle]

Still wondering how this works. If you don't use ALBUMARTIST tags, will the artist still appear in the Database > Album Artist list?