Artist Artwork is missing in iTunes 12.5

Bob Foss wrote:

I just deleted the microphones and in Album View List (not Grid) I have the same view as Artist View but without the microphone pictures. All my album artwork is shown and can be enlarged to 14" x 14". In the Album List view, the artwork is the same size as in Artist view. I just didn't like the microphones as they were too distracting. It is cleaner without them.

I'm not as bothered by the microphones, especially since monochrome versions of the same microphones have been around for several years.

My question is: how did you edit them? Did you go back to a previous version? The Artist View is formatted so it's particularly difficult to change.

I have no doubt this "issue" is not a bug but rather one of Apple's tactics to get us bit into their master plan!

Most of us like the layout of the previous versions of iTunes (OSX) and Music (IOS) and being able to select music by artist. Over the years, we have become accustom to beautiful layouts and clean interface. As explained above, the only way to keep the layout clean, is to navigate through your music with Album view (which lengthen the list obviously). As such, we will become more selective in the music we import, get ride of albums after few months, and import new ones, kind of like you would do with movies, series...etc. Apples want us to consider music like a consumer good, and not a collection that you cherish and improve over the years. In fine, they wants us to give up on importing our own music and rather start using their paid "Apple Music" offer.

I might be wrong (I hope I am actually), but I would not be surprised if this was a planed strategy...

Any thoughts?

@mokuleia, As much as I wouldn't doubt this is Apple trying to get more users to use their paid services, it doesn't make sense to me because I haven't purchased anything from them and yet I have two artists out of 100 that show images and the rest don't. I am positive the two showing the correct "Apple Music stock photo" was not purchased through iTunes or from any Apple service whatsoever. This leads me to believe that it is a bug and they pushed out the update anyway because regardless of the images appearing, the application still works. Just frustrating after hours and hours of organizing my library to reflect the way I want it, only to upgrade and have that all removed. With the iPhone7 removing the headphone jack and forcing users to purchase additional items (honestly, at this point are we really that shocked they're making you buy more crap you rightfully shouldn't need?) I can state here for the record I'm going to Android and leaving the iTunes/Apple Music mess entirely. It will feel liberating, I assure you.

Why would you want to stick with an ancient connector that restricts both quality and functionality. If you want to live in the past Apple may not be for you.

And I'm sure you were one of the people telling people to switch to Compact Disc over vinyl.

Wrong again

I have the same issue. Over 22,000 songs, all legally purchased over approximately the last 16 years. The only non directly purchased music I have is that on my phone from my Apple Music subscription.

Now on iPhone 7 with iOS 10.0.2, around 80% of my artist artwork is gone.

Does anyone know how to get it back?

Please not, 'artist' artwork is the problem; album artwork is ok.

Best regards

T

Yes, the same problem here. Apple should fix it I hope

Well, here's what I've experienced:

I had Apple Music subscription in the past but I've canceled it for months now. Having zero purchases of Apple Music all my album artwork in Artist view was replaced by that super-ugly mic, except for 3 artists, no obvious reason why. Yesterday I renewed the subscription for a month, and when I updated the library, almost all the artists have now their photo in the small circle.

Better than the mic of course, but still ugly and meaningless, as most pics are bad, and besides there are artists that I know a song or two, but I don't know (and don't care to know) their face.

I hope they'll fix this soon, although something deep inside is telling me that they won't.

Sadly, Apple is ruining step by step what once was great piece of software. Just like OS X...

These is already a huge thread on this issue created and added to by hundred's of users in the past few days. It appears to be a 'change' that Apple introduced, though no one seems clear if its a mistake or not - no word from Apple on the sudden arrival of the microphone. Some users report Artist art appears for material purchased through iTunes but others have found the source of the material makes no difference. Some users appear to report the problem exists in both OSX and IOS, or only in OSX. It appears in the main from the thread this isn't about Album Art, that remains in most cases reported, this is about Apple now deciding seemingly to replace Album Art with Artist Art which seems to originate from Apple Music Promoted Artist graphics (seemingly lots of artists don't have an Apple promotion picture hence the pink microphone of death).

There are last time I checked no fixes being provided by Apple, nor no quick and simple solutions in that thread. I understand some users have reverted back to a previous version of iTunes and turned off auto update, though I'm unclear how you actually do that (can anyone provide instructions?).

So for now, it appears we are stuck with the pink microphone of death in place of album or other art.

FWIW, I posted a radar to Apple on this issue. My radar was closed as a duplicate of another issue (which I can't see). So know that Apple is aware of the issue.

The "Apple Recommended" answer posted by the Granto102 on this thread doesn't solve the core problems of this issue:

1. Artist artwork does not appear on iTunes on macOS.

2. Artist artwork is different between iTunes on macOS and Music on iOS. iOS typically has more artwork than iTunes.

There is no reason why iOS and iTunes should be different. They should be consistent. I think we should realize these apps are based on different backend data sources.

I'm really surprised this bug exists. Certainly music and the iTunes ecosystem is high priority to Apple. Artwork is important, but more importantly I think consistency between iOS and iTunes is essential.

This is pretty sick! Not only is the artist artwork gone, and the microphones that suck, now also several of the few pics that appear on some artists are just wrong! Look below; this is not Terje Rypdal, it looks more like Jack DeJohnette to me. Where are thos images coming from? When is this going to be fixed? Aaaarrrggghhhh!!!!!!!!!!

Hi all, experiencing exactly the same issue as Grant in the 'Artists' view of iTunes 12.5.1.

All of my music in my library is purchased, but a significant number of artists are missing the artwork (just showing the default microphone). The actual album artwork shows when an artist is selected.

I've tried deleting artists tracks and then re-downloading, but this makes no difference. I cannot find any reason why certain artists have no artwork. Apple have obviously not got this working correctly.

Running iTunes on a Mac, 10.11.6.

Pete.

@ Granto 102:

Here we are talking about iTunes 12.5, not about iOS.

Did you try this in iTunes? If not, please post your iOS concerns elsewhere, thanks.