A funny thing happened when I upgraded to iTunes 12.5 and iOS 10. Most of the artist images in my music library disappeared, to be replaced by a herd-like column of multi-colored microphones.
No I always found it weird the way iTunes and the iOS 10 Music app picked a random album cover to illustrate certain artists – the ones for which they don’t have photos in the iTunes Store – but at least there was something that enabled me to spot artists at a glance. Now, I see long columns of microphones that look like they’re on acid.
iTunes has never allowed you to add your own, custom images for artists, and that’s a shame. Though, to be honest, with 465 artists in my iTunes library, I really don’t want to spend the time doing that.
The new display just looks ugly. They took away some variety, probably thinking that it wasn’t just exactly right, and replaced it with monotony. If something is wrong, it’s best to think of a way to fix it, rather than just get rid of it.