I'd recommend a library manager/player, then. So much more versatile in browsing, and selecting what to play. Your example would be dealt with by using the 'genre' metadata view, rather than the physical view, or the 'album artist' metadata view. You can sort by any metadata field.
Do have a look at MM or MB; they both have an 'auto-DJ' function that I find essential; indecisive and 65k+ tracks isn't a good combination...
But, yes; pick whatever structure best suits you. I'm just trying to give suggestions for someone embarking down the ripping process. As I said earlier, a good library manager will allow you to automatically reorganize your file structure, should you wish. MM is good for pulling music back off an iThing, since it will undo the file obfuscation into properly-named files, based on the metadata.
Oh, I've got a great player, made by the same company as my file browser. I just find myself reaching for the file browser app more often. I (usually) know what I want to listen to, know where it is, and play it. Easy peasy.
It's also great for reaching for stuff that is new to my harddrive. I keep all new arrivals in monthly folders, and then add them to the master genre folders every month. I also do my backing up at this point. If I'm not sure what I'm in the mood for, I'll often just go to those folders and browse around.
I think the proper tagging thing can't be stressed enough to those new to this. Get it right at the start. Figure out what
your style is right at the start.
I use EAC, and I think it's fantastic, but I usually find myself tweaking at least one thing with the tagging that pops up; either the genre is wrong(for me) or missing, the art is crap or missing, or the year is missing or wrong, etc. I appreciate that the copy of Coltrane's Blue Train might be a 1995 reissue, but in no way is that proper in a metadata way. Put the 1995 reissue thing in the comments, sure, but it's a 50s album.
I'll fess up on the tagging thing.
I'm 100% with it when it comes to tags now, but I have plenty of albums that aren't tagged properly to my liking. Which brings me back to the file browser. All of my files are filed properly. The Coltrane example above would be a folder labelled John Coltrane - Blue Train. The metadata? If it's something I put on the hard drive within the last few years, the tagging would be sorted out. Before that? Lets just say that me and MP3Tag have a lot of cleaning up to do.
How that music would show up in a proper music player can be a crap shoot.
This thread is actually kinda timely for me.
I get my internet, TV, and phone through the same company. To get 4K they had to upgrade all of the gear in my house this past weekend.
I used to just plug a hard drive into the router and use the file browser app to access tunes on all of the Apple gear in the house and garage. A 'poor mans NAS' that worked just swell for my needs.
I haven't had much time to look into it yet, but I can't get the same thing going with the new router. That combined with this thread has me re-thinking about how I'm going about all of this.