as I understand from Apple's documentation of iTunes, "Album Artist" is a field that (can be/is) used to - for example - specify the soloist in tracks in which they only appear in part of a recording (say, a recording of a violin concerto and symphony in which the conductor and orchestra is the same for the entire recording, with only the soloist differing for the concerto tracks- getting put in the "Album Artist" field for those tracks. Why this doesn't get synchronized to the iPod I have no clue.) That's what they suggest it can be used for, anyway; how it actually gets used is various diverse sundry and variable of course. But just thought I'd put that in there.