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Unlink Artwork from a Song?

I have some songs in my library that show the album they are from as some collection - like "NOW! That's What I Call Music!" or "We Are the 80's".


I've been going through and updating the album to the artist's ORIGINAL album that this appeared on. Many of these are available in iTunes, so I know iTunes has the correct artwork.


I update all the information correctly, I delete the album artwork in "Get Info", but when I Download Artwork - the old album artwork keeps appearing. It's like iTunes "remembers" the old album information that was in there and doesn't let go of it. No matter what I do, I can't get it to download the correct album artwork - even though I have other songs from that album and they correctly work.


It's "stuck" in thinking that the artwork goes with this song, even though there is nothing referencing that album in my Get Info screen anymore. Is there a way to force this artwork to be "unlinked". Clear Downloaded Artwork isn't even available for these songs - it's like it's imbedded.


And, this seems to have just started happening with the latest download of 11.3. I never remember having a problem with this as pervasively before.


Any ideas?

iPhone 5s, Windows 7

Posted on Aug 28, 2014 8:22 AM

Reply
5 replies

Aug 28, 2014 8:37 AM in response to itgirl92

You need to add your own custom artwork to prevent the Download Artwork feature attempting to replace the original art.


Inserting a copy of the default no artwork image might suit you if you cannot locate the correct art for a track...


User uploaded file


In addition, go to iTunes > Preferences > Store and turn off

  • Show iTunes in the Cloud purchases
  • Share details about your library with Apple

On any iOS device go to Settings > Music and turn off

Show All Music

Close and reopen iTunes and/or reset the device and you should see your version of the metadata for each track rather than the original store data.

tt2

Aug 29, 2014 12:19 PM in response to turingtest2

I can put in artwork... and have been doing that. But, it takes a lot of time to do that when I shouldn't have to.


Here's the problem:

I have the downloaded song. Album Artist is "Various Artist" and Album is titled "We are the 80's".


I change Album Artist to "The Bangles" and Album to "Different Light" which is available on iTunes. (Because that is the original album it appeared on)


I delete the "We Are the 80's" artwork. When I re-download the artwork, it should find the Different Light artwork, but it still finds "We Are the 80's" even though that's not referenced anywhere in the Get Info page.


And, this used to work. I never had this problem until the latest upgrade.

Aug 29, 2014 12:25 PM in response to itgirl92

Have you tried switching off the preferences I mentioned earlier and then trying again. Recent builds of iTunes have started picking up on the original store metadata if those options are enabled. I would recommend embedding your own artwork. If/when you manage to get the correct art to download from the store my script EmbedFolderArt can be used to embed any store art so it won't be replaced later.


tt2

Unlink Artwork from a Song?

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