The Joys of Cover Art

Been spending a LOT of time finding and attaching cover art to my MP3s. It's painstaking work, but with about 65% done by this afternoon, and viewing the results in iTunes' coverflow window, I have to say it's well worth it.

I'm using MediaMonkey for the job. This application does way more than just do cover art - but that's all I need it for as iTunes is still my music manager of choice.

There are two methods provided by MediaMonkey, and neither is foolproof. The "auto" method draws content from Amazon - but the search often does not return results, or returns results that are quite inappropriate. Certainly, the tags on the file can play a big part in this, but even when the tags are fine, the results can still be poor. Which leads to the "manual" method - in which one finds coverart on one's own, and manually attaches the images to the MP3s using Media Monkey. I find these album cover files on Google Image Search, Amazon, and Albumart.org. The strange thing is that even after apparently successfully updating art to the MP3, it disappears the next time I go back to look at it. Reattaching the album art often works. Then, there's also the problem of art that's attached, can be seenin Windows Explorer and Media Monkey, but not in iTunes.

So it's not foolproof, it's a hassle and lots of work....but still very worth it in the end. Apple has a way of making small, not wonderful quality album cover images look great in the coverflow window. Now, if only I had a new iPod that had coverflow built in........

References:
www.mediamonkey.com
www.albumart.org