Photo icon for Artist

[Ralf11]

many of the icons for artists when "Artists" along the side is selected are missing photos and just have an gray circle with a microphone in it - this happens despite the Album covers being present

 

How can I fix this?

 

all music is ripped from CDs or downloads; no use of Apple Store files

 

iTunes 12.8.2.3 (still has column browser)

[Ralf11]

...

 

[kirkmc]

People have tried to hack this in the past, with no success. These photos come from Apple's servers, and while some people find ways to temporarily change them in the past, it was never worth the hassle for me. I really wish you could add custom photos for artists and genres. 

 

It's worth noting that with the Music app in Catalina, if you use Apple Music, all artists have photos; if there is no artist photo on Apple's servers, the app picks a photo from an album by that artist. The ones I see in my library that uses Apple Music and Cloud Music Library are all rips of my own. So if you don't use Apple Music, then you won't see many artist photos, but if you do, you'll see a lot.