diff --git a/pkgs/additional/sane-scripts/src/sane-tag-music b/pkgs/additional/sane-scripts/src/sane-tag-music
index a88be8730..904389db3 100755
--- a/pkgs/additional/sane-scripts/src/sane-tag-music
+++ b/pkgs/additional/sane-scripts/src/sane-tag-music
@@ -190,10 +190,6 @@ class Tags:
         albumartist=merge_field(self.albumartist, fallback.albumartist)
         tracknumber=merge_field(self.tracknumber, fallback.tracknumber)
 
-        if artist == albumartist:
-            # if extraneous, then keep the album artist whatever it originally was
-            albumartist = self.albumartist
-
         return Tags(
             artist=artist,
             album=album,
@@ -246,17 +242,19 @@ class Tags:
         """
 
         if loose_compare_lists(self.artist, self.albumartist):
-            # arist & album artist are nearly identical:
+            # artist & album artist are nearly identical:
             # probably guessed one of them from filename, which was lacking certain symbols of the actual artist.
             # recover whichever of these fields had the fewer characters removed (i.e. is longest)
             if len("".join(self.artist)) > len("".join(self.albumartist)):
-                self.artist = self.albumartist = self.artist
-            else:
-                self.artist = self.albumartist = self.albumartist
+                self.albumartist = self.artist
+            elif self.albumartist == [clean_for_fs(a) for a in self.albumartist] and self.artist != [clean_for_fs(a) for a in self.artist]:
+                # the album artist was taken from disk (bad), but the artist was provided in some way that preserves more info
+                self.albumartist = self.artist
+            elif self.albumartist and all(self.albumartist):
+                self.artist = self.albumartist
 
         if self.artist == []:
             self.artist = self.albumartist
-            self.albumartist = []
 
     def rewrite_singles(self) -> None:
         """ idiom is for singles to belong to self-titled album. else each artist's singles get merged into one massive album """
@@ -568,7 +566,6 @@ class Tagger:
             if self.manual_tags.tracknumber == [""]:
                 # special case that `--trackno ""` can be used to delete the track number without `--force`ing all fields
                 new_tags.tracknumber = []
-        new_tags = new_tags.union(self.manual_tags)
         new_tags.trim_fields()
         new_tags.cleanup_trackno()
         new_tags.expand_shorthands()