iTunes Artist View Interface Adds Content, Obscures Music

iTunes has several ways of viewing your content. You can view by Songs, Albums, Artists, Genres or Composers. Most of these views are fine, and just present your music library in a different manner. But changes to iTunes in the latest update have made Artists view very hard to use.

Here’s one example. I’m looking at an album that has a single track in my iTunes library.

Itunes interface

The window isn’t very large, but it’s not that small either. On my Mac Book Pro, it takes up most of the screen, but not as much as if it were in full-screen mode.

The problem is, of course, the Biography and Similar Artists sections. I didn’t ask iTunes to display that information, and, frankly, I’d rather not see it, but there’s no way to turn it off. As such, and because the track is rated, there isn’t enough room to display the track name. If tracks aren’t rated, then you don’t see the stars, and you see a display like this:

Itunes interface2

This album contains three string quartets, but there’s no way of knowing which is which from the display.

Interestingly, if the window is just a bit smaller, then the Similar Artists section does not display.

Itunes interface3

There is no world in which this is good design. There should be an option to turn off this extra content.