What are the best websites for high quality album art?
April 06, 2010 in album art by Dan Gravell
What are the best websites for album art? Nowadays I, like most people, want to enjoy album art as a part of the whole album experience. I want high quality, high resolution album art and I want it part of my listening experience.
Of course, bliss already automatically retrieves album art when it is missing from my collection. However, some people prefer to look manually, and some people, including myself, just enjoy browsing the wealth of history’s album covers.
If you are wondering what websites can provide album art, I hope the suggestions in this blog post help you find what you are looking for.
I’ve found that the quality of album art from any particular website often varies inversely proportional to the chances of finding the art you are looking for. That is, there’s a quality/quantity trade-off. This is because some websites operate strict control policies over the album art that is submitted which keeps quality up but quantity down.
To combat the quality/quantity trade-off I operate a sequential checklist of websites, starting with those of highest quality and working my way down.
Album Art Exchange Best for high resolution
I start with Album Art Exchange (known as AAX to its members) which has some beautiful album covers. The art is generally of a high quality and high resolution, so it is easily reusable for different applications, whether on a mobile phone or on a big-screen TV. bliss doesn’t search Album Art Exchange just yet as there isn’t an API, but I’d love it to. Also, in the past AAX has been quick to ban both individuals and entire countries, leading to some resentment. Don’t say I didn’t warn you…
MusicBrainz / Cover Art Archive (and Amazon) Best for high quality data
Next it’s MusicBrainz, a generalised music database that links to both the Cover Art Archive and Amazon for its album art.
MusicBrainz submission policy is more open than Album Art Exchange, so there are a lot more albums recorded in it. MusicBrainz’s link to Amazon means the latter is responsible for storing the album art, and for many releases this means a good range of art including back covers.
One of the best things about MusicBrainz’s artwork is the surrounding metadata is excellent. Images can be denoted as being from the front cover, back cover, the medium itself (e.g. the vinyl or CD), inserts and more. You can also get the images in different sizes.
bliss searches both MusicBrainz and Amazon.
Discogs Best for coverage
Discogs is my next site. Like MusicBrainz, Discogs is a general music database and operates a community model. The difference with Discogs is that it appears to operate a more open definition of what constitutes a ‘release’ and so you get more unofficial releases such as cover mounted CDs and bootlegs. This is great if you really want to see all there is to offer. However, in some cases the artwork can simply be pictures of CD covers, which means you get the case and/or stickers fouling the artwork. This might not be what you want.
Others
Finally, if I haven’t found a match yet, I tend to use Google image search, followed by Yahoo image search. You have to be careful with the results, because art of all sizes and qualities are returned. bliss has a convenient link to Google image searching, but due to Google’s Terms of Service, automated use of the images API is not permitted.
Although I use them less frequently directly, it’s also worth mentioning maniadb and Fanart.
If you still can’t find the art, it’s probably not available on the Web, so it’s time to get the scanner out (and don’t forget to submit your art to the sites above so others can benefit from your work!).
And that is how I search for album art.
