Linq to Entity Join and Group By

Question

I am new to Linq to Entity and here is my test scenario:

• There are Users
• Users have Photo Albums. An album belongs to only one User
• Albums have Photos. A Photo belongs to only one Album
• Photos have Tags. A Tag may belong to many Photos

I want to write a method which displays Count and Name of Tags used in Albums of a particular User using Linq.

Here is the method that I wrote and it works fine

    public static void TestStatistics(int userId)
    {
        // select AlbumTitle, TagName, TagCount where UserId = userId
        var results = from photo in dbSet.PhotoSet
                      join album in dbSet.AlbumSet on photo.AlbumId equals album.Id into albumSet
                      from alb in albumSet
                      where alb.UserId == userId
                      join photoTag in dbSet.PhotoTagSet on photo.Id equals photoTag.PhotoId into photoTagSet
                      from pt in photoTagSet
                      join tag in dbSet.TagSet on pt.TagId equals tag.Id
                      group new { alb, tag } by new { alb.Title, tag.Name }
                          into resultSet
                          orderby resultSet.Key.Name
                          select new
                          {
                              AlbumTitle = resultSet.Key.Title,
                              TagName = resultSet.Key.Name,
                              TagCount = resultSet.Count()
                          };

        foreach (var item in results)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(item.AlbumTitle + "\t" + item.TagName + "\t" + item.TagCount);
        }
    }

And this is the standart T-SQL query which does the same

SELECT  a.Title AS AlbumTitle, t.Name AS TagName , COUNT(t.Name) AS TagCount
FROM    TblPhoto p, TblAlbum a, TblTag t, TblPhotoTag pt
WHERE   p.Id = pt.PhotoId AND t.Id = pt.TagId AND p.AlbumId = a.Id AND a.UserId = 1
GROUP BY a.Title, t.Name 
ORDER BY t.Name

It is pretty obvious that standard T-SQL query is much simpler than the Linq query. I know Linq does not supposed to be simpler than T-SQL but this complexity difference makes me think that I am doing something terribly wrong. Besides the SQL query generated by Linq is extremly complex.

Is there any way to make the Linq query simpler?

UPDATE 1:

I made it a little simpler without using joins but using a approach like used in T-SQL. Actually it is now as simple as T-SQL. Still no navigation properties and no relations on db.

var results = from photo in dbSet.PhotoSet
              from album in dbSet.AlbumSet
              from photoTag in dbSet.PhotoTagSet
              from tag in dbSet.TagSet
              where photo.AlbumId == album.Id && photo.Id == photoTag.PhotoId &&
                    tag.Id == photoTag.TagId && album.UserId == userId
              group new { album, tag } by new { album.Title, tag.Name } into resultSet
              orderby resultSet.Key.Name
              select new {
                  AlbumTitle = resultSet.Key.Title,
                  TagName = resultSet.Key.Name,
                  TagCount = resultSet.Count()
              };

Answer 1

If every photo has at least one tag , then try

var results = (from r in PhotoTag 
    where r.Photo.Album.UserID == userId
    group r by new { r.Photo.Album.Title, r.Tag.Name } into resultsSet
    orderby resultsSet.Key.Name 
    select new 
    { 
        AlbumTitle = resultsSet.Key.Title , 
        TagName    = resultsSet.Key.Name , 
        TagCount   = resultsSet.Count() 
    }
    );