The "Album Artist" tag in iTunes is used to group tracks to albums - for cover flow and album view etc - look at the XML playlist export. The agent uses Artist tag. For the most part Artist and "Album Artist" tag are the same, but albums like soundtracks, compliations like Now 77 and guest appearances on an a single artists album, will result in the agent synching to rogue folders with single tracks in either the iTunes or Artist Folder Patter.
Jaran - it would be FANTASTIC if you could add a check box to toggle use of "Album Artist" or "Artist" based on how users have their music tagged? Personally I am trying to sync to SD card for use in my car, but everything goes pear shaped for compilations and soundtracks, as these tracks are directed to the individual artist / album folders.
Ideally Albums like now would be grouped under the Album Artist tag, which might be "Various Artists" - but the whole of the 2CD Now 77 album will be in one folder. Guest appearances of a single track on an Album by the main Artist, would get grouped under the Main Artist / Album - so you would get the whole album logically grouped.
See screen shot to see how individual albums where "Album Artist" and "Artist" are the same all group OK, but then compilatiosn like Now77 are being created as folders for each individual Artist, witha sinle mp3 file in each folder.
hope this explains things. Thank you for taking the time to consider
Use of Artist tag versus Album Artist tag