Does the album art concept adds to, takes away, or does nothing to the overall experience?

Some Bemani games (DDR, Jubeat, Reflec Beat, etc) use real or concept album art for the song select menu while others (IIDX) don’t.

I’m of two conflicting thoughts about it. Licensed songs like “Hillbilly Shoes” or “Shut up and Dance” use the actual album covers from the albums that feature the song, but most songs don’t and are just some kind of seemingly random artwork. I am assuming that the artwork is meant to give some kind of visual representation of the music. But by that logic, I can’t seem to make the connection for songs like “Elemental Creation.” Because of that, I felt partially that the artwork is a bit redundant and going with a simple list like IIDX would be better.

On the other hand, artwork is a godsend if you can’t read hiragana/katakana/kanji. You may not remember the song if there is no Roman alphabet in the title, but you can remember images more easily.

Elemental Creation's artwork is less of a connection to the song itself and more of a reference to the Private BEMANI Academy event, which Elemental Creation was originally a part of.

That being said, I like having some kind of visual representation for each song even if I think it doesn't fit the song that well. It's not a make-or-break thing though.

---

Considering that there's now a song (Endymion) whose album art specifically hides and reveals itself as part of its event's aesthetics, I'd definitely say "adds to the overall experience".