Zune Artist Background Image - Solution

[brummiesteven]

I see a lot of topics asking how to get the Artist BG Image in the Zune Player. I always reply with this solution and then, once I've replied, the threads always seem to die. This I guess suggests that not only does the solution work for me, it works for everyone else too.

I decided to post the solution here in a separate thread, as I've seen a lot of topics on the subject both here and in the WP7 forum. Hopefully this will stop new topics being made (as it will come up in the "Similar threads we found).

Anyway here's the solution:

1) Transfer your music to your phone
2) Play the music without the BG image
3) Click on the Artist's name... This will take you to the summary of the artist
4) All songs* of this artist should now be shown, below this you have a Marketplace heading with an Arrow, click this Arrow.
5) All songs* in the marketplace should now be displayed.. IF the artist has a BG image it should load up now
6) Press back to go back to now playing, the BG image should still be present and will be present now for all songs by that artist
7) Repeat the process for each artist.

*It may be albums that come first, I can't remember off the top of my head.

Known Faults:

- Incorrect tagging
For example, "Mr. Hudson" in the marketplace is "Mr Hudson" thus music tagged as "Mr. Hudson" wont display a BG Image. To identify this, nothing will load when you try and load Marketplace items for that artist. To fix, simply rename in Zune

- Certain Artists
While this has worked for 99% of my collection, there are 1 or 2 artists who have BG images when in artist view but then this image just wont copy over to now playing. I have no idea why and have no Solution for this.

 

[mankie]

I can't seem to replicate these steps.
Not able to find this step...

4) All songs* of this artist should now be shown, below this you have a Marketplace heading with an Arrow, click this Arrow.

 

[knave]

Same here. Step 4 doesn't show anything. It will only display the albums I have of the singer. I'm using a track by Avril lavigne, which has already been linked via Zune social tagger. Again I think its somehow related to your region.

 

[brummiesteven]

I can't seem to replicate these steps.
Not able to find this step...

4) All songs* of this artist should now be shown, below this you have a Marketplace heading with an Arrow, click this Arrow.

When you play a song, click on the artist name in now playing.

You should get a summary of the artist. It should look like this:

ARTIST NAME
SONGS

IN COLLECTION
-A
-B
-C

Scroll all the way down and you should see :

MARKETPLACE
V
V

At the bottom. Click on that circle with the 2 downwards arrows in it.

 

[brummiesteven]

Same here. Step 4 doesn't show anything. It will only display the albums I have of the singer. I'm using a track by Avril lavigne, which has already been linked via Zune social tagger. Again I think its somehow related to your region.

Unless the Zune Marketplace is not available in your region then it should work in said region, it's simply a link to display albums of that artist in the marketplace.

 

[Spybreak]

Unless the Zune Marketplace is not available in your region then it should work in said region, it's simply a link to display albums of that artist in the marketplace.

I've tried it several times and no dice. Searching for the artist in the marketplace shows results but doing it your way shows nothing. I'm pretty sure the mp3 files are tagged correctly, unless it's not only using the artist/album name and that's why it can't find a match.

I'm in Spain though, which might also be related, although we do have marketplace access here.

 

[brummiesteven]

I've tried it several times and no dice. Searching for the artist in the marketplace shows results but doing it your way shows nothing. I'm pretty sure the mp3 files are tagged correctly, unless it's not only using the artist/album name and that's why it can't find a match.

I'm in Spain though, which might also be related, although we do have marketplace access here.

Do you mean that when you click on the arrow under Marketplace nothing shows up? This means that there is something wrong in your tagging, check the Artist and Album Artist in Zune and verify that it matches the name of the artist exactly how it is in the Zune Marketplace.

 

[BIG-Stan]

The thing is that it doesnt work all the time...
I did the things that you wrote a few weeks ago from a different thread. It worked with some artists. I could hit the "arrow" button and then it would load after a second the available tracks.
But on some artists if I hit the button it shows that it's loading but then kind of fades away and there is no more option to press the button again. Seems like a bug to me cause some artists work this way. Or again, it could be some tagging problems...

 

[brummiesteven]

The thing is that it doesnt work all the time...
I did the things that you wrote a few weeks ago from a different thread. It worked with some artists. I could hit the "arrow" button and then it would load after a second the available tracks.
But on some artists if I hit the button it shows that it's loading but then kind of fades away and there is no more option to press the button again. Seems like a bug to me cause some artists work this way. Or again, it could be some tagging problems...

It's not a bug, in my experiences that's definitely a tagging problem.
The reason why it fades away is because it couldn't find any trace of that artist in the market at all.

Remember the smallest things make a difference, Capital Letters, Accents, Dots etc etc

 

[BIG-Stan]

ok, makes sense... will look through my library but take for example dr. dre. There are not that many ways to mispell him I tried every possible combination. And still zune cant match him. Searching for him works though...Really weird stuff.

 

[brummiesteven]

ok, makes sense... will look through my library but take for example dr. dre. There are not that many ways to mispell him I tried every possible combination. And still zune cant match him. Searching for him works though...Really weird stuff.

Try another Artist.

When I said this works for 99% of my collection...

Dr. Dre is one of the ones that for some reason it just hasn't worked, Will Smith is the other.

 

[VonCrisp]

Hmm strange. Dr. Dre - 2001 worked for me

 

[mankie]

Yah, cause i'm in Canada, marketplace doesnt have any music so it doesnt sync artists

 

[VonCrisp]

Yah, cause i'm in Canada, marketplace doesnt have any music so it doesnt sync artists

Just put your PC location as the US.

 

[VelJharig]

Just put your PC location as the US.

That doesn't appear to work. I can browse US Zune content on the PC client after changing regions if I sign out of my Canadian Zune account, but even after creating a new US Zune account and logging in on my desktop client, backgrounds don't sync over to the phone (and Zune Tagger can't find any Zune music store content when attempting to link albums). It does still remember sync'd content between the phone and desktop client after switching accounts, and will sync still, but no information from the US marketplace gets to the phone. It appears that because the default phone account is linked to a Canadian Live/Zune account (needed to purchase WP7 apps), it blocks access to the US Zune marketplace info.

Have you actually tried this and had it work in a region that doesn't have any access to the music marketplace (like Canada)?

 

[dodgetigger]

Another method

I had success to get all the artist images and stuff on my phone by right clicking any artist in the Zune Software on the PC and then choosing "More from this artist".

On the next sync, I had all the images.
The "More from this artist" menu entry does not show up for any artist in my list, though, so I haven't pictures for all of them. But the ones that don't are more or less some indie artists, that aren't even on the marketplace.

 

[kille9]

I had success to get all the artist images and stuff on my phone by right clicking any artist in the Zune Software on the PC and then choosing "More from this artist".

On the next sync, I had all the images.
The "More from this artist" menu entry does not show up for any artist in my list, though, so I haven't pictures for all of them. But the ones that don't are more or less some indie artists, that aren't even on the marketplace.

if I do that I get: Error, this item is no longer available at Zune marketplace..
I try with Michael Jacksons latest album "Michael". So it is a new album and I can find it in zune marketplace... So why can't I find info when I have michael in my own collection?

 

[brummiesteven]

I had success to get all the artist images and stuff on my phone by right clicking any artist in the Zune Software on the PC and then choosing "More from this artist".

On the next sync, I had all the images.
The "More from this artist" menu entry does not show up for any artist in my list, though, so I haven't pictures for all of them. But the ones that don't are more or less some indie artists, that aren't even on the marketplace.

This is the same idea but just through Zune rather than on the handset itself.

 

[ad8472]

Yup the above works although not all artists are supported. Good job.

 

[Rao_7]

Guys i'm from Malaysia but they don't have an account here so i created an American one..but i'm still nt 2 sure hw 2 do this..maybe a video..thanks..