

I agree with you that play music is geared towards the cloud at the moment. This might be due to difference in versions since the last time you tested it. I tested the points you highlighted above and all seem true except the second one cause it actually displays the music and the cover art but not the artist image. So, it scans for music on my SD card and imports them. Regarding the application, Yes it is Play music on android and I am running mine fully offline due to restrictions of using play music in unsupported countries which I currently happen to be categorised. I think that "Play Music" is geared towards the cloud and we should not expect good support for offline music. If you want to add your own artist, there seem to be some online options. I googled android "play music" artist image and from the results it seems that the artist image is automatically determined by "Play Music" if it is a mainstream artist. It seems that the support for embedded cover art in "Play Music" is not very sophisticated.

This way you could embed both a cover image with "Picture Type" "Cover (front)" and an artist image with "Picture Type" "Artist/performer". You can get to this dialog for existing pictures by selecting the "Picture" frame and clicking "Edit.". You could change the "Picture Type" in this dialog from "Cover (front)" to "Artist/performer". You can add pictures either using drag'n'drop or by clicking the "Add." button, then selecting "Picture", "OK", then in the dialog, "Import." and choose the picture.
