Tricking iTunes to Display the Correct Artwork

I got the audiobook of Bruce Springsteen’s memoir Born to Run this week, narrated by Bruce himself. (Amazon.com, Amazon UK)

I noticed something odd in iTunes. Since I also have Bruce Springsteen’s album Born to Run, iTunes displays the audiobook using the artwork from the album. (You can see it in the background, in a playlist displaying with Songs view.)

Bruce artwork1

iTunes assumes that since it’s the same album (actually, the tag for an audiobook says “title”) and the same artist (or “author” for an audiobook), it should have the same artwork. And while iTunes knows it’s not the same media kind, it just ignores that fact and doesn’t use the artwork embedded in the files I downloaded from Audible.

There’s an easy solution, but one shouldn’t have to do this. Select the tracks of the audiobook, press Command-I, then append a space after the author’s name or the book’s name. In my case, I named it “Born to Run ” but you could change the author to “Bruce Springsteen ” if you prefer. Now it displays as it should.

Bruce artwork2

It’s a very interesting book, and hearing Bruce Springsteen read it makes it even more so. I highly recommend it.

2 thoughts on “Tricking iTunes to Display the Correct Artwork

  1. The idea that one must ‘trick’ itunes into doing something it should already be working out for itself is somewhat troubling. I mean come on, apple? they’re a big successful tech company aren’t they…..?
    Overall, itunes still gets my vote, it’s still pretty good, but these tiresome workarounds are increasing.

    Otherwise, well explained….

  2. The idea that one must ‘trick’ itunes into doing something it should already be working out for itself is somewhat troubling. I mean come on, apple? they’re a big successful tech company aren’t they…..?
    Overall, itunes still gets my vote, it’s still pretty good, but these tiresome workarounds are increasing.

    Otherwise, well explained….

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