This question, "Why aren't songs with the same album art grouped together" turn up very often. In fact, it is the title of a very good knowledge base article by Apple support website. In that article, Apple showed why, in the album view in iTunes, the same album is not grouped together under the same album.
For me, I would like to talk about the above information but in slightly more details and in terms of the COVER FLOW in iTunes since that's my favourite.
Before we begin, it is important that in cover flow, you are sorting your songs by the column "album by artist". 
If you do it in other ways (e.g. date modified, date added, artist etc), you might already have a problem :)
One of the usual problems is when you see the album art of the same album repeated many times in cover flow.
As an example. The attached picture is the soundtrack album of the wonderful movie, French Kiss. As you see, the same pretty album art is repeated many times in the cover flow.
The reason is because there are different artists singing different songs in the same album. The album name is absolutely correct but the actual artists are different. As a result, each album art is repeated for each different artist. You can see that in the picture above where the artist column showing the different singers and the album art showing the name of the singer at the bottom.
This is a case of what iTunes called COMPILATION album. Compilation albums happen often for CDs that are "best of hits by different artists", movie soundtracks. Wikipedia gave an excellent explanation of this.
To solve this, make sure you check the COMPILATION for all the songs (even though they are sang by different artist) in the same album. To do so, first select all the songs and do a RIGHT CLICK and then GET INFO.
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In the next box, check and mark the COMPILATION as "YES".
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Your cover flow should be nicer now and you know it is right as the artist names are replaced by "Various Artists" description.
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In my next blog, I will cover the concept of Album Artist and how it affects Cover Flow.
Years ago, Album Art or Album Cover or Album Artwork does not matter. It comes with your LP. It comes with your CD. But it is not something that you worry too much about. You look at it, put it back to the jewel case and then you keep it in your shelf or rack or shoebox and just enjoy your music.
Then came Apple and the first generation iPod. When Apple came out with that revolutionary product, it kicks off the MP3 craze (sorry, Creative, I know you came first but...). Album art was still, however, not something you cared. Properly tagged MP3 files are (you know, the MP3 file must be tagged with the right artist name, right album name, right release year, right gene, right composer.. you get the idea..).
Then came iPod with the colour display. Album Art was re-introduced as a real art form. People realised that they do want to make good use of those bright color pixels on the iPod screen. Then when CoverFlow was purchased by Apple in 2006, and its technology was integrated into its iTunes 7. People start to realize that there is probably a need to fill out this blank square in the iTunes library.
Album Art suddenly matters. Really matters to me personally.
If done correctly, it is embedded in your MP3 file and when you use iTunes or use your beautiful ipod nano or ipod classic, a properly formatted album art is in fully glory and is just a great companion to the songs. If you have a iPod Touch or a iPhone, Cover Flow is incorporated to it and album art then takes a different amazing experience.
I bought my first iPod when Apple introduced the iPod nano. I never looked back and thus begin my journey of self obsession with my iPod. Every MP3 track in my iPod must be properly tagged. Every MP3 track in my iPod must have the lyrics. Every MP3 track must be traced back to the original album where the first time the song appeared. Every track must be tagged up in proper Unicode format (since I listen to mostly Asian songs). And of course, my track must have a proper decent album artwork.
To me, a properly sized album is at 500x500 dimension. Some called it an overkill (but hey, I think Apple iTunes stores' songs are at 600x600 !). But that's me. me. me.
Over time, I find it frustrating that it is difficult to automatically find properly sized album art for Chinese albums. For English albums, there are tons of tools and tons of great album art. Not so for Chinese. For my own CDs, that's fine. I can scan them and then size them properly. For the rest of the MP3 tracks I found on the web, it is not so easy. I do find a lot of album art for Chinese albums that are either too small or even come with watermark embedded in them. I absolutely hate that. I find it crazy. What's the freaking point !
I personally want a web site of album art that are easy to use in my beloved MP3 player. That's why I started this blog. To upload and share album art of Chinese CDs from wherever I scan them, found them, downloaded them, copied them etc. I don't claim to be the owner of all but I do cleaned all up nicely.
I also decided I will regularly blog about my obsession on how I tagged my MP3 songs, added lyrics to them, about how I find and size up my album art. Or maybe whatever new stuff I am doing or learning from others about my iPod, my iTunes or my MP3 files.
You are welcome to use these album art and share them. I am open to that.








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