beets fails to detect compilations when importing metadata from Deezer

Problem

Beets is interpreting compilations as albums and is putting all artists into folder names, resulting in extremely long paths Standard import command:

$ beet im

Led to this problem:

Correcting tags from:
    A.Skillz - 2017 Fractal Forest Compilation
To:
    A.Skillz, Chali 2na, CMC & Silenta, Deekline, Defunk, DJ Brace, Fort Knox Five, K+Lab, Krafty Kuts, KWADI, Marten Hørger, Neighbour, OPIUO, Skratch Bastid, Slynk, Stanton Warriors, Stickybuds, The Funk Hunters, Dynamite MC, Father Funk, MC Rtkal, Mystro, Neon Steve, Shad, Malenda, Various Artists - 2017 Fractal Forest Compilation
URL:
    https://www.deezer.com/album/43959881
(Similarity: 81.4%) (tracks, artist, source) (Deezer, 2017, Westwood Recordings)
 * Real Big Deal (Original Mix)                            -> Real Big Deal (Original Mix) (source)
 * 7 Day Weekend (Original Mix)                            -> 7 Day Weekend (Original Mix) (source)
 * Limoncello feat. Shad (Original Mix)                    -> Limoncello feat. Shad (Original Mix) (source)
 * The Things That You Do feat. Father Funk (Original Mix) -> The Things That You Do feat. Father Funk (Original Mix) (source)
 * Right Now (Original Mix)                                -> Right Now (Original Mix) (source)
 * Flanjitsu (Original Mix)                                -> Flanjitsu (Original Mix) (source)
 * Flute Ting feat. MC Rtkal (Original Mix)                -> Flute Ting feat. MC Rtkal (Original Mix) (source)
 * Still Here (Stanton Warriors Shambhala Mix)             -> Still Here (Stanton Warriors Shambhala Mix) (source)
 * You Don't (Original Mix)                                -> You Don't (Original Mix) (source)
 * Shake My Head (Original Mix)                            -> Shake My Head (Original Mix) (source)
 * Don't Go (K+Lab Remix)                                  -> Don't Go (K+Lab Remix) (source)
 * Brazilian Hipster (Original Mix)                        -> Brazilian Hipster (Original Mix) (source)
 * Yeah Thats Right feat. Mystro & Malenda (Original Mix)  -> Yeah Thats Right feat. Mystro & Malenda (Original Mix) (source)
 * Right Right Up feat. CMC&Silenta and Verse Ital         -> Right Right Up feat. CMC&Silenta and Verse Ital (source)
 * Get Involved feat. Defunk                               -> Get Involved feat. Defunk (source)
 * Clap Ya Hands Now feat. KWADI (Original Mix)            -> Clap Ya Hands Now feat. KWADI (Original Mix) (source)

Full -vv output

Setup

• OS: Linux void 5.13.15_1
• Python version: Python 3.9.7
• beets version: beets version 1.5.0
• Turning off plugins made problem go away (yes/no): No

My configuration (output of beet config) is:

directory: /mnt/hdd/beets-export
library: /mnt/hdd/beets.db

plugins: spotify discogs deezer edit

paths:
    default: $albumartist - $album ($year) %if{$catalognum,{$catalognum$} }[Deezer WEB - $format]/$track. $artist - $title
    singleton: $artist - $album ($year) %if{$catalognum,{$catalognum$} [Deezer WEB - $format]/$track. $artist - $title
    comp: Various Artists - $album ($year) %if{$catalognum,{$catalognum$} [Deezer WEB - $format]/$track. $artist - $title
spotify:
    source_weight: 0.5
    mode: list
    tiebreak: popularity
    show_failures: no
    artist_field: albumartist
    album_field: album
    track_field: title
    region_filter:
    regex: []
    client_id: REDACTED
    client_secret: REDACTED
    tokenfile: spotify_token.json
discogs:
    apikey: REDACTED
    apisecret: REDACTED
    tokenfile: discogs_token.json
    source_weight: 0.5
    user_token: REDACTED
    separator: ', '
    index_tracks: no
edit:
    albumfields: album albumartist
    itemfields: track title artist album
    ignore_fields: id path
deezer:
    source_weight: 0.5

[wisp3rwind]

Here is the deezer api response if someone is going to look into this in detail: http://api.deezer.com/album/43959881. A first step would probably to research how deezers contributors and artist should be mapped to “all artists” and “album artist”, and whether these are even used consistently in their database. Maybe git blame can tell why the contributors field was chosen for the artist in the first place?

[9Mad-Max5]

In most cases, deezer api delivers a main tag in the contributors section. Like in this example: https://developers.deezer.com/api/explorer?url=album/302127 This makes it in the most use cases far more sophisticated over the spotify api. As this doesn’t bother at all. I’m not actually sure how to handle it in this case. There have been a lot of contributors flagged as main. But as well, there is a contributor listed with ID 5080. I guess it is translated, but the ID should be sufficient to check if this is part of the contributors to flag the whole album as various artist.

I just stumbled across this issue as I was kind of disappointed as I noticed the deezer plugin tends to set all mentioned artist as albumartist…