iTunes artwork

[Stuart Brackpool]

The facility on iTunes that allows the downloading of artwork for albums you have ripped to your computer is, I think, a lovely thing. However, its choices do bamboozle me at times.

I've no idea what album cover it is that comes up when I tried finding the artwork for Boston's first album and something called Silver Ash comes up when I try doing the same for Silver Sun's first album.

A couple of times recently it hasn't even found them when I know they're on iTunes. Namely, new albums by Feeder, Teenage Fanclub and a (kind of) oldie in the soundtrack to The Virgin Suicides. Does anybody know why this is or how to circumvent it?

[Sarc]

I have no idea why iTunes does it as I've had the same problem, the only way I've avoided it is to google the. Cd artwork and manually insert the info into the album itself. Only thing you have to be careful of though is if you click find all bum artwork it'll overwrite the file you put in so you have to go through it all again.

[Ean]

It happens occasionally when it gets confused - most likely due to the encoding monkey associating the wrong artwork when it's going into the system. I find it gets a bit muddled if you change the name of anything too much during the ripping process too.

The easiest way round it is probably to ditch the artwork that comes from iTunes (if you don't know: select all tracks>right click>remove downloaded artwork, or, if it happens to be tagged on the file itself select all tracks>right click>get info>put a tick in the empty box in the bottom right of the info screen>ok), and use something like:

http://www.albumartexchange.com/

or

http://albumcoverproject.com/

or there's always good old Google image search.

[Sarc]

It happens occasionally when it gets confused - most likely due to the encoding monkey associating the wrong artwork when it's going into the system. I find it gets a bit muddled if you change the name of anything too much during the ripping process too.

The easiest way round it is probably to ditch the artwork that comes from iTunes (if you don't know: select all tracks>right click>remove downloaded artwork, or, if it happens to be tagged on the file itself select all tracks>right click>get info>put a tick in the empty box in the bottom right of the info screen>ok), and use something like:

http://www.albumartexchange.com/

or

http://albumcoverproject.com/

or there's always good old Google image search.

Which is pretty much a differently worded version of what I said.

[Ean]

Indeed. I wrote it ages before then got sidetracked and forgot to hit submit until then. Oh well.

If you tag the tracks with your own artwork, it shouldn't delete it if (for whatever stupid reason) you select the get missing artwork option, cos it's embedded in the MP3 file rather than just linked to the way iTunes does it. You should be able to toggle between the different artworks (you can attach pretty much any amount you like) in the artwork box in the bottom left hand corner of iTunes.

[Stuart Brackpool]

Finding images isn't usually a problem but it's easier, great resolution and doesn't take up as much space if done from iTunes. I've had to change titles of albums, for instance Annie's last album which needed '(European Bonus Track Version)' or something like that, tagged on the end.

So it's most likely an encoding problem from some tech-monkey, eh? Bloody simian-kind.

Thanks, chaps.