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The Echonest API has in its index mostly artist images from Last.FM which recently pulled the plug on their images rendering the entire echonest api basically useless. Has anyone found a workaround?

https://getsatisfaction.com/lastfm/topics/fetching-images-from-last-fm

Anthony Webb
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  • I'm having the exact same problem myself. When you say "pull the plug," are you implying that Last.FM doesn't have plans to fix this functionality at a later date? It seems as though they're just trying to migrate everything over to a new system. I think the issue may lie in the fact that Last.FM may be using a new, different URL structure for their images. In that case, it would be wise to just use the official Last.FM API for artist images for the time being. However, it seems as though its somewhat broken on the official Last.FM API as well. – Taconut Sep 21 '15 at 13:24

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Well here's a workaround. I posted this on the getsatisfaction link you provided:

You can check to see if the echonest images are coming from the old, broken server (they begin with http://userserve-ak.last.fm) and cancel those out. If no more echonest images exist, you can try to get one using the Last.fm API as a fallback.

As far as albums go, there must be another substantial API out there for use as a fallback. Has anyone looked into discogs or beatport? Both of those work with Echonest ID spaces.

Taconut
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  • A bit late, but you can check out the cover art archive, which operates under the Musicbrainz ID space, but you can get MusicBrainz IDs from Echonest using Rosetta – Brandon Slaght Dec 26 '15 at 18:52
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They didn't pull the plug, it's just that URL of images changed (probably along with their new website), it's not http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/252/xxxxxxxx.jpg anymore but http://img2-ak.lst.fm/i/u/300x300/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.png.

The Echonest cached this info, so now they have to update it... and it takes time. You can either wait or use Lastfm's API to retrieve images yourself ;)

SuN
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    I've mailed echonest to see if they have any plans on updating the links, but no reply yet and it's been about 10 days since I asked so far. If anyone has a contact at EchoNest please PM me! – Hitobat Nov 05 '15 at 17:04