Posted on July 14, 2010 - by dirtymitten

iTunes Trick for Eliminating the word The from Alphabetical lookup

The title sounds like a goddamn thesis paper, but it’s really quite easy.

If you’re a musical purist, like me, a catalogue of tracks where 90% of the band names are clumped in with each other because the band name of the album title begin with the word ‘the’. In that case, alphabetically, according to iTunes Talking Heads comes before The Stranglers, and it drives me up a wall.

Well, check this out. If you right-click on a track and select Get Info (which also never made sense to me, because I’m GIVING Info), you’re presented with the track information. Surrounding the band name with square brackets like this will force iTunes to alphabetize according to the bracketed section.

Like this:

The [Jam]
The [Members]
The [Only Ones]
Sex Pistols
Stiff Little Fingers
The [Stranglers]
Talking Heads