Album page: multiline artist/composer in song list + visual differentiation between the two

Feature description

Two improvements to the album page song list to make artist and composer metadata more usable:

1. Allow artist/composer subtitle lines to wrap or expand instead of truncating

Currently, when “Always show artist name in song list” is enabled, the artist line is limited to a single line and gets truncated with an ellipsis. For tracks with featured artists (e.g. “Bruno Mars feat. Cee Lo Green & B.o.B”), the text gets cut off after just the primary artist name, making it impossible to see who the featuring artists are without opening the track or playing it.

A setting to control the maximum number of lines for the artist/composer subtitle (or simply allow it to wrap onto a second line) would solve this. Even a “2 lines max” option would cover the vast majority of cases.

2. Visual differentiation between Artist and Composer lines

When both “Always show artist name” and “Show composer in song list” are enabled, both lines display with the same “Par …” prefix and identical styling. There is no way to tell at a glance which line shows the performing artists and which shows the songwriters/composers.

A visual distinction would make this much more useful — for example:

  • Different prefix labels (“Artist:” vs “Composer:”)
  • Different font weight or opacity (e.g. composer in lighter/thinner text)
  • A small icon prefix to differentiate the two

Problem solved

Right now, the album tracklist view loses critical information that is correctly displayed in the now-playing screen. For music lovers who care about featured artists (very common in R&B, Hip-Hop, Pop), the truncation means you cannot scan an album to see which tracks have guest artists without playing each one individually. And when both artist and composer are shown, you cannot distinguish songwriting credits from performing credits.

Brought benefits

  • Users can instantly identify featuring artists on any track from the album view
  • Composer and artist metadata become meaningfully distinct rather than visually identical
  • Better parity between the rich information shown in the now-playing screen and the album tracklist
  • Particularly valuable for genres where collaborations and features are central (R&B, Hip-Hop, Pop, Electronic)

Concrete example:

Bruno Mars — Doo-Wops & Hooligans, track 10 “The Other Side”:

  • Now-playing correctly shows: Bruno Mars feat. Cee Lo Green & B.o.B
  • Album song list with artist enabled shows: Par Bruno … (truncated)
  • Album song list with composer enabled shows: Par Bobby Ray Simmons, Jr. • Brody Brown • Mike Caren • Philip Lawrence • Ari Levine • Joshua Lopez • Bruno … (truncated, and indistinguishable from the artist line)

Device type

Phone

Additional description and context

I searched existing feature requests and did not find this specific combination. Thank you for the incredible customization options already available — this would make the album page even more powerful.

Screenshots / Mockup

I searched existing feature requests

on

Just my two cents:

  1. I’d love a max-line setting as well. Right now we can only show multiple lines if we enable the composers, which I don’t necessarily need to see.

  2. Seems like either a localization issue or an error with your tags. As you can see in the following screenshot, my library shows “By:” prefix for the composers, which are separated from the performing artists by a bullet ( • ). The two groups themselves use commas between each name.

These songs only have one composer, but I have verified that multiple composers are also separated by commas. The bullet only appears to separate composers from artists, as far as I can see. (I’ll check if I have a better example.)

Better example:

Clearly shows format of:

"By" composer 1, composer 2 • Artist 1, Artist 2

At least for English.


This was slightly related to my earlier request here, which is why I knew the composers and artists are separated properly.

Hi, thanks for your feedback, and I agree with u on part 2.

There is a separation with the • that separates Composers from the Artist.

But in liste cases, when there are lots of composers, we don’t get to see the Artist(s) especially when they are more than 1.

Even better than the separation by the • would be something like this:

Track Number - Track Title

Artist(s): Bruno Mars feat. B.O.B. & Cee-Lo Green

Composers: x, y, z…

I enclose another example of a Dru Hill album where People are all separated by • and I can’t even understand who is what (composer, artist?)

where People are all separated by • and I can’t even understand who is what

Yes, this is the point I was trying to make. My library only ever has ONE bullet displayed, to separate the “composer” list from the “performing artist” list. I don’t know why yours displays bullets between every name, but it adds to the confusion.

In your Dru Hill screenshot, if the rest of those names are all composers they should show as a comma-separated list like in my screenshots earlier. Then there would only be one bullet before “Dru Hill”, making it clear that the composer list has ended.

@Tolriq what is your opinion on this request? Anything you could help with?

Thank u in advance :folded_hands:t4: