I remember a long discussion about how to deal with artist names involving 'The', eg 'The Doors', but don't remember anything quite like my issue;

What do you do when an artist modifies their name slightly between albums? Go for accuracy, or search-/tweak- ability?

eg. Yngwie Malmsteen. In his early days, his albums were released as 'Yngwie J Malmsteen's Rising Force', paying tribute to the band that he was working with. But ostensibly, the music was all about Yngwie - the band was little more than a backing band and in later years, his albums were simply 'Yngwie Malmsteen'.

or Sasha and Digweed; They have been known as 'Sasha and Digweed' and as 'Sasha and John Digweed'.

Is it really just a case of deciding accuracy vs tweakability? If tweakability is the 'answer' are there any paradigms commonly used to decide which of the available names is best to use?

I know this is a pretty open question, and there's probably no right or wrong answer, but opinions and arguments would be valued...

IMHO accuracy pales in comparison to searchability, so I'd use one consistent artist name in these cases.

In a perfect world, tracks would allow for multiple artists, and you could have your cake and eat it too. The early Yngwie albums would have "'Yngwie J Malmsteen's Rising Force" as the main "displayed" artist field, but you also add "'Yngwie Malmsteen" as an artist, and search for that. Or in a more common example, you could have songs by "The Beatles" and do searches for "George Harrison" to get both his Beatles tracks and his solo efforts. At one time the empeg guys sounded like they were in favor of supporting multiple artists, but we all know the story of empeg development recently.

I always rename artists so that they're all the same.

For instance, if I had any John Cougar Mellencamp on my player (I don't), I would tag every track with the artist "John Cougar Mellencamp", even if it was a John Cougar album or a John Mellencamp album.

On my player, I have albums by "Steve Morse", and "The Steve Morse Band". They all get tagged with "Steve Morse". Likewise for "Pat Metheny" and "Pat Metheny Group".

To be honest, I see this as a logical extension of typo-fixing CDDB entries. For instance, CDDB query might result in the artist name "REM", whereas a query on the next album might result in "R.E.M.". Or perhaps it's a "The" title, such as "The B-52's" as opposed to just "B-52's". I just always standardize artist names, regardless of whether it's poor CDDB entries, or an artist whose name changes.

What about when a song was a single and featuring someone else.

Like

Pat Boone feat. Otis Redding.

heh... this has been an ongoing problem for me.

Oddly enough, I have a lot of albums by William "Bootsy" Collins. Sometimes he's 'Bootsy Collins', sometimes it's 'Bootsy's Rubber Band', other times it's 'Bootsy's NEW Rubber Band'... etc, etc...

I used to go by accuracy... but then there were situations were that didn't work out so well. I've since changed all artist fields to 'Bootsy Collins' as that is how I refer to the musician. It may not be 100% accurate, but it makes searches easier for me. I then place the artist listed on the cover art in the Comments for posterity.

As far as "Featuring" situations I've only come up with a mildly annoying kludge. Normally I list the Artist as the main artist... and add the supplemental artist to the track name. Like "Funk Ain't Broke (w/ That Other Guy)".

In really obsessive cases, where I can't decide who is the main artist I actually make two copies of the song... but then I use a new bar of soap every time I wash my hands.