Is there a free database or web service api for music information (albums, artists, tracks)?

Question

I need to look up artist/album/track information for song titles.

Is there a free database I could download or a open source web service/api I could use?

You should ask at http://opendata.stackexchange.com this question would be on-topic there. — Nicolas Raoul, Nov 06 '14 at 11:46

score 26 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 18 '15 at 18:06

26

Try the last.fm api at http://www.last.fm/api.

If that doesn't work for you, you can look at the various APIs listed in this search result: http://www.programmableweb.com/category/music/api

This is a Silverlight tutorial, but since this is an HTTP REST API, it could seem agnostic to you to get started: http://www.devx.com/VisualStudio/Article/40158.

edited Sep 18 '15 at 18:06

answered Oct 21 '10 at 14:59

Chris Gomez

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I've used last.fm and it was pretty nice for a couple of years. Recently it has turned to garbage - does not return data in many instances. Many functional pieces are broken. Still looking for an alternative to switch to. – Kon Oct 30 '15 at 00:31
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While I am glad that it helped the poster of this question, this answer is old enough in "Internet years" that really there are probably far better places to look now. Sorry about the answer being stale, but not sure how StackOverflow deals with that. – Chris Gomez Oct 30 '15 at 14:41
`last.fm` is worthless for album info. It does not even return the release date, e.g., Metallica's multi-platinum self-titled album. – Tom Russell Dec 22 '17 at 10:24

score 23 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 01 '10 at 20:49

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I'd go with musicbrainz.

http://musicbrainz.org/doc/XML_Web_Service

http://musicbrainz.org/doc/libmusicbrainz

answered Nov 01 '10 at 20:49

Gra

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Mathieu Rodic · Answer 3 · 2017-02-04T12:56:46.813

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I would personnally recommend Discogs, which is free and doesn't limit the per day usage. However, it limits the amount of requests to one per second per IP address.

The API is quite clear and documented. It uses JSON over HTTP, and has wrappers for various programming environnements (Python, Ruby, Perl, .NET, PHP).

Plus, it has data about a massive amount of artists, releases and labels.

edited Feb 04 '17 at 12:56

answered Jan 10 '13 at 08:26

Mathieu Rodic

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Updated API Link: https://www.discogs.com/developers/ – stackPusher Feb 04 '17 at 01:39

Steve Tjoa · Answer 4 · 2015-07-02T17:25:01.020

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Yes! The Echo Nest. Pretty hot startup outside Boston that just got more funding. Their API lets you search by artist, album, track, and more.

edited Jul 02 '15 at 17:25

answered Oct 25 '10 at 14:54

Steve Tjoa

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and their funding just seems to have exhausted. it goes 404. – aelor Jul 02 '15 at 06:40
Sorry, I fixed the link. That said, I'm kinda surprised that `echonest.com` (without subdomain) doesn't resolve. Also, they were bought by Spotify, so I guess that funding is no longer an issue. :-) – Steve Tjoa Jul 02 '15 at 17:25
thanks for the prompt reply – aelor Jul 02 '15 at 18:28
Pro: Echonest is free and easy to use. Contra: Echonest doesn't know anything about albums. – phortx Dec 03 '15 at 09:30
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And link is not working again. – MAC May 28 '20 at 07:24

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Oct 21 '10 at 14:52

FreeDB is free, but may or may not have an API. It is user-generated content.

http://www.freedb.org/

And apparently Gracenote is the new CDDB (but probably not free). I guess they finally figured out that they didn't want to limit their database to CDs.

Is there a free database or web service api for music information (albums, artists, tracks)?

5 Answers5

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