iTunes 12.2 - how to remove similar artists and influencers?

This is terribly annoying. In iTunes 12.1 I could see around 3 to 4 albums with their songs, now I need to scroll down because that similar artist thing is in the way. It doesn't even make sense.. Muse for example, "similar to: Placebo, Coldplay, The Killers, Franz Ferdinand", that is complete and utter ********, it's just displaying some artists I have in my library, likewise with the influences tab. Muse isn't at all influenced by Smashing Pumpkins and Queen...

I'm not seeing this at all, so I assume its associated with Apple Music (something I have absolutely no interest in, and was pleased to be able to disable in 12.2). Apple seem to assume that those wanting to stream music need help in deciding what to listen to next 😟

I also have this complaint. I don't want to see what is essentially a cluster of advertisements on the side. Too much clutter! Apple, please give us a way to hide the 'Similar Artists' that show up on the right side of the album you are currently listening to.

I am sure this will be an ongoing issue with many people posting. I await an update :-D

(PS, this only occurs under ARTIST VIEW; going into ALBUM VIEW hid these for me, but I would still like them gone.)

Hi,

This similar artist thing has to do with the itunes store, i never had a problem till i bought a song from the itunes store. Deleting that song solved the problem for me. As long as you don't buy anything from them it won't show up. So my advice is don't buy from itunes anymore.

That seems to be correct; I have very few albums purchased from the iTunes Store (less than 10 out of more than 4000), and see the "Similar ..." info for just some of the relevant artists. It appears to take just one purchase to trigger this, i.e., you'll see it for an artists responsible for multiple albums in your library even if only one of then is a Store purchase. I've classed this one as a "minor irritation" as I very rarely use Artists view, but I definitely agree that this behavior should be configurable so that users not interested in it don't see it.

Yes this is awful. It shows up for every artist I've ever purchased a song from and there doesn't seem to be a way to turn it off. This guarantees I'll never buy anything from the itunes store again.

I sure don't know how to 'cure' this but you are quite correct it's pretty **** annoying.

BTW: the worst thing is that as far as I can tell Apple seems to think that if they are musicians then they must be either 'similar' or an 'influence' .... I suppose that this is a correct assumption to make but really, can you be any cruder?

I'll bet that this kind of Kaka is making Steve roll over in his grave.

Since I never had any of these 'similar artists or influences' listed before this I updated to 12.2 I can only suppose that Apple violated my trust and took inventory of MY library while performing the last update. I did not give permission for this and am quite certain that all options had been set to prevent Apple from getting information from me.

I suppose that they are now tracking the number of 'plays' that each song gets?

I suppose that they are now tracking the number of 'plays' that each song gets?

Well, I think so. But I don't want them to know what artists or songs I listen to a lot. I already got last.fm doing that for me, on purpose. I suppose they updated their enormous and unreadable EULA to which we apparantly gave permission.

I'm in the same boat, I was so disgusted to find out now that I can't even browse my music library without Apple trying to sell me stuff. Incredibly annoying. There is definitely no way to turn the "similar artist" thing off but (this might sound weird) if you grab the corner of the itunes window you can resize and shrink the itunes window just enough so that the similar artist thing will disappear and you can browse your albums in Artist view without seeing that junk cluttering up the screen. Not a perfect solution but so far it's worked well for me.

Who in the world thought this was a good idea?? (Well besides the Apple accountants who see this as another revenue stream..)

Everyone, I got your solution! It's so well hidden though. Simple fix for PC at least but should be easily translated by MAC users. Go to Edit>Preferences>Parental>Check the Apple Music Connect>Restart iTunes.

Actually, that didn't work for me but it was a good guess.

Haha great! That'll do for now :-)

I tried the Mac equivalent of this this suggestion, but it did not work. 😟

Thanks....That'll help for now.

...Until Apple starts thinking of its customers rather than its frankly repugnant and insatiable desire to simply drive revenues at every opportunity ( I'm sure they can still fit YET another model into its never ending range of products...)

Bit sad though that customers are forced into these measures...are you listening Apple?

Boy,how this company has changed in recent years...and not for the better. I've been using their product for over 20 years.

Ever tried its customer service? Used to be one of the best...

(Cue the Nerd Police on this forum to defend the indefensible...)