Songs with multiple artists get tagged incorrectly

Author: genericCandyCreated Sep 16, 2026Updated Sep 17, 2026

I'm not really sure if that's a bug or intended behaviour (i opened discussion #6856 about this but nobody replied), but when a song or album contains multiple artists (for example A & B), beets lumps them together into a single artist (that in this example would be called A & B), which clutters the library.

Problem

Running ffprobe on a relevant file shows that there is a single artist tag that lumps together all the artists, instead of one tag per artist:

TAG:title=KAYFABE
TAG:artist=Ptite Soeur & Gemroz
TAG:track=5/6
TAG:album=KAYFABE CHIMERA
TAG:disc=1/1

Setup

I don't think that's very relevant but anyway:

OS: Arch Linux
Python version: 3.14.7
beets version: 2.14.0
Turning off plugins made problem go away (yes/no): no

Config file:

yaml

# --------------- Main ---------------

library: ~/.config/beets/library.db
directory: ~/Music

# --------------- Plugins ---------------

plugins: musicbrainz embedart fetchart replaygain mbsync
replace:
    '[\\/]': _
    '[\x00-\x1f]': _
    \.$: _
    ^\.: _
    \s+$: ''
    ^\s+: ''
    ^-: _
artist_credit: no

# --------------- Tagging ---------------

per_disc_numbering: yes

ui:
    color: yes

import:
    log: ~/.config/beets/import.log
    move: yes
    timid: yes
musicbrainz:
    extra_tags:
    - year
    - catalognum
    - country
    - media
    - label
    genres: yes
    search_limit: 5
    data_source_mismatch_penalty: 0.5
    search_query_ascii: no
    genres_tag: genre
    external_ids:
        discogs: no
        bandcamp: no
        spotify: no
        deezer: no
        tidal: no
    aliases_as_credits: no
paths:
    default: $albumartist/$album%aunique{}/$disc-$track $title
    albumtype:soundtrack: Soundtracks/$album/$disc-$track $title
    singleton: Non-Album/$artist/$title
    comp: Compilations/$album%aunique{}/$disc-$track $title
replaygain:
    auto: no
    backend: ffmpeg
    overwrite: no
    threads: 12
    parallel_on_import: no
    per_disc: no
    peak: 'true'
    targetlevel: 89
    r128: [Opus]
    r128_targetlevel: 84
scrub:
    auto: no
lyrics:
    auto: no
fetchart:
    enforce_ratio: 2%
    auto: yes
    fetch_for_asis: no
    minwidth: 0
    maxwidth: 0
    quality: 0
    max_filesize: 0
    cautious: no
    cover_names:
    - cover
    - front
    - art
    - album
    - folder
    fallback:
    sources:
    - filesystem
    - coverart
    - itunes
    - amazon
    - albumart
    - cover_art_url
    store_source: no
    high_resolution: no
    deinterlace: no
    cover_format:
    fanarttv_key: REDACTED
    lastfm_key: REDACTED
    google_key: REDACTED
    google_engine: REDACTED
embedart:
    auto: no
    remove_art_file: yes
    maxwidth: 0
    compare_threshold: 0
    ifempty: no
    quality: 0
    clearart_on_import: no
disabled_plugins: []

Source: beetbox/beets

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