Artist Photos Missing in iTunes 12.5.1

This won't solve the missing artwork issue, but if you are feeling daring, you can easily replace the icon asset from within iTunes itself:

It looks like it's a just standard 1200x1200 PNG image.

WARNING: I would make a backup copy of iTunes before doing this.

Here I just made the icon grayscale.

Have the same issue when updating to 12.5.1. However, after

I rolled back (via TM) to 12.4.x to get my artist thumbnails back, I then upgraded to macOS Sierra. The basic install of Sierra (10.12.0) install iTunes 12.5.0 and although it has the new layout (including huge album artwork) it retains the square artist album artwork as the profile thumbnails. See below. Haven't updated to 12.5.1 yet. Afraid it will go back to round microphones. But maybe, just maybe this issue was resolved for the Sierra launch. May do a TM backup and try and install 12.5.1 just to see, and be able to jump back to 12.5.0 just in case.

No such luck. It's still there in Sierra... 😠

I'm getting the microphone icons for artists that I have purchased from iTunes. 😟 It just seems random. In the past I've been able to update album artwork for CDs I ripped and put into iTunes and that worked fine. Now even things I bought from Apple have lost their artists icons.

It really seems to be random. I have missing pictures on albums I bought and on albums I ripped. Why don't anyone on apple never answers anything about theese threads here? And That's not to mention that this last "upgrade" has a horrible and simpleton look. The Radio interface icons are a shame.

Here's some help for those ugly new icons -- for Windows 7, they are located in C:\Program Files\iTunes\iTunes.Resources as .png files, 1200x1200 pixels. The new microphone icon for artists is named

MissingArtworkArtist.png -- I moved this out of the folder, then copied the icon named MissingArtworkMusic.png (music notes icon), renamed it as MissingArtworkArtist.png within the iTunes.Resources folder. Now I see the music notes icon instead of the microphone when looking at the Artists list in iTunes.

Take it one step further -- use your own custom image or icon and name it MissingArtworkArtist.png, or do that for any of the other default icons for missing images. As long as it's a .png 1200x1200 pixels (or any square size), it should work. Be sure to back up these custom icons in another folder for the next time iTunes gets updated.

Same problem here in ios10 and Sierra. I do not think that shows only artists whose albums have bought in itunes, because in my case shows many of whom have not bought on Itunes . I guess it's a random bug .

Its true. It makes no difference whether you ripped the CD or whether you purchased from the iTunes Store the pictures are just random. Some show the picture and some show the standard microphone picture.

What "huge album artwork" are you referring to? Is it (for example) the ABBA album covers that you screen-shotted? Or is it something else?

FYI, I've found that if you position your cursor between the "Artists" column and the "Albums" column, you can drag [left/right] and that re-sizes the album cover art from [small] to [medium] to [large].

But, for me, the main issue is the ridiculous pink microphones.

BTW, I was in an Apple store yesterday, and all the iMacs/Macbooks I checked had 100% pink microphone "issue."

Presumably, all devices in Apple stores have been equipped with Itunes (only) downloaded music. So (agreed), this does not appear to be an issue with ripped vs. iTunes-downloaded music.

My MacBook Pro is still at the previous version of iOS, and I noticed that the graphic of the microphone in Artist View is monochrome.

As others have noted, the microphone in most recent iOS upgrade is more colorful - a pastel pink/blue.

The graded pink/blue effect can also be seen elsewhere. In the "Recently Added" section, you'll see a pink/blue pane if the song art hasn't been added:

You'll see the same pink/blue frame in Album View if you haven't added album art.

The artist photos are missing for several albums I bought in the iTunes Store as well. Possibly because they are no longer in the store, but I didn't check this.

Anyone upgraded to Sierra ( which includes 12.5 iTunes ), then uninstalled 12.5 and gone back to 12.4.3 ?

I rolled back to 12.4.3 and iOS9 and wanted to put Sierra on, but didn't want to upgrade the OS if you have to have 12.5 or 12.5.1 iTunes.

I too am very disappointed by change in handling of the display of artists with nearly all artists being represented by the placeholder microphone icon.

I'd vote for returning the prior behavior of using the most recent album cover for the artist. It would also be nice if iTunes allowed users to add their own picture/icon for artist (similar to how users can specify artwork for each song/album).

On related notes: I'm also disappointed by the new display for the albums themselves. I really liked the special visual effect that changed the background color of the display of the song list based upon the colors used in the album art. The all-white background is very sterile/boring. Also, I miss the two-column display for the song list. Without it, it's just a lot more scrolling...

Can Apple please bring back the old display for artists and albums/songs?

Just checked - even some artists I added to my library from Apple Music don't have artist photos.

That's just plain sloppiness on Apple's side. If a publisher adds an artist to Apple Music, you ensure that stuff like artist photos are included. Maybe @timcook should step in and fix this digital supply chain the way he fixed the physical one.

All my artist icons are generic rainbow microphones, except U2. Obviously not U2.