USB audio info displayed on 2019 Prius

Longtime 2008 Prius owner, just got a 2019 LE with the base non-JBL stereo. Stereo/phone connectivity in the 2019 is light years ahead of the 2008...

I was a bit annoyed with the USB MP3 situation, where the files were not navigable by file system folders on the USB drive. I could navigate by folders on data disks in the 2008 and that is how my music collection is stored on my computer.

The problem was that when I put the USB stick in the car, I'd get a bunch of the same artists, for example:
- Guns n' Roses
- Guns N Roses
- Guns and Roses

... it was really annoying.

I spent a bunch of time figuring this out via trial and error and thought I'd share my findings. I couldn't find any posts that directly addressed this while searching online.

The biggest problem is that the Prius stereo takes the MP3 file tag "Contributing Artists" and uses info that as "Artists" in the car. You'd think the car would use the info in the "Album Artist" tag, but it doesn't. Go figure.

To make it tolerable for me to play music via the USB Drive, the following tag fields on the MP3 files MUST be correct:

• Contributing Artists
• Album
• Title
• #

If those tags are filled out correctly, you won't want to drive your car off a cliff.

I've attached a couple images that show the correlation between the MP3 file tags and what the Prius displays.

 

I've also spent some time trying to figure out what drives the album art.

I can tell you for sure, it has nothing to do with putting a .jpg file in the folder with the songs of an album. I've tried every combination of file names and extensions and haven't gotten the album art to show up. And I've even removed all image files from another folder and the album art stayed when playing that album in the Prius.

The one thing that I can confirm works 100% is using MediaMonkey to add the album art.
1. open MediaMonkey and navigate to the folder of the album you want to add artwork for.
2. select all the files of the album.
3. on the bottom right of the screen, right click in the 'album artwork' area and select 'add image'.
4. find the cover artwork saved on your computer.
5. make sure 'apply to all files in the album' is checked and hit OK.

A screenshot is attached.

I've tried doing this with Windows Media Player but it added the wrong artwork to several albums. I was able to fix it with MediaMonkey.

 

Also, just FYI, I noticed that the album art in my car displays when driving. I've read in other threads that the album art is not displayed when not in park. I don't know why my 2019 Prius displays the album art when driving, but it does.