musicbrainz-api

musicbrainz-api

A MusicBrainz-API-client for reading and submitting metadata

Features

• Access metadata from MusicBrainz
• Submit metadata
• Smart and adjustable throttling, like MusicBrainz, it allows a bursts of requests
• Build in TypeScript definitions

Compatibility

Module: Pure ECMAScript Module (ESM). The distributed JavaScript codebase is compliant with the ECMAScript 2020 (11th Edition) standard.

This module requires a Node.js ≥ 20 engine.

[!NOTE] We are looking into making this package usable in the browser as well.

Sponsor

If you appreciate my work and want to support the development of open-source projects like musicbrainz-api, music-metadata, file-type, listFix(), lizzy, strtok3, or tokenizer-s3, please consider becoming a sponsor or making a small contribution. Your support helps sustain ongoing development and improvements. Become a sponsor to Borewit

This package is currently only developed for the use in a node.js environment. We are looking into making this package usable in the browser as well.

Before using this library

MusicBrainz asks that you to identify your application by filling in the 'User-Agent' Header. By passing appName, appVersion, appMail musicbrainz-api takes care of that.

Submitting metadata

If you plan to use this module for submitting metadata, please ensure you comply with the MusicBrainz Code of conduct/Bots.

Example

Example, how to import 'musicbrainz-api:

import {MusicBrainzApi} from 'musicbrainz-api';

const mbApi = new MusicBrainzApi({
  appName: 'my-app',
  appVersion: '0.1.0',
  appContactInfo: '[e-mail]'
});

The following configuration settings can be passed

import {MusicBrainzApi} from 'musicbrainz-api';

const config = {
  // MusicBrainz bot account username & password (optional)
  botAccount: { 
    username: 'myUserName_bot',
    password: 'myPassword' 
  },
  
  // API base URL, default: 'https://musicbrainz.org' (optional)
  baseUrl: 'https://musicbrainz.org',

  appName: 'my-app',
  appVersion: '0.1.0',

  // Optional, default: no proxy server
  proxy: {
    host: 'localhost',
    port: 8888
   },

  // Your e-mail address, required for submitting ISRCs
  appMail: string,

  // Helpful if you have your own MusicBrainz server, default: false (optional)
  disableRateLimiting: false,
}

const mbApi = new MusicbrainzApi(config);

Lookup MusicBrainz Entities

MusicBrainz API documentation: XML Web Service/Version 2 Lookups

Generic lookup function

Arguments:

• entity: 'area' | 'artist' | 'collection' | 'instrument' | 'label' | 'place' | 'release' | 'release-group' | 'recording' | 'series' | 'work' | 'url' | 'event'
• MBID (MusicBrainz identifier)
• query

const artist = await mbApi.lookup('artist', 'ab2528d9-719f-4261-8098-21849222a0f2');

Query argument	Query value
query.collection	Collection MBID

Browse artist

const artists = await mbApi.browse('artist', query);

Query argument	Query value
query.area	Area MBID
query.collection	Collection MBID
query.recording	Recording MBID
query.release	Release MBID
query.release-group	Release-group MBID
query.work	Work MBID

Browse collection

const collections = await mbApi.browse('collection', query);

Query argument	Query value
query.area	Area MBID
query.artist	Artist MBID
query.editor	Editor MBID
query.event	Event MBID
query.label	Label MBID
query.place	Place MBID
query.recording	Recording MBID
query.release	Release MBID
query.release-group	Release-group MBID
query.work	Work MBID

Browse events

const events = await mbApi.browse('event', query);

Query argument	Query value
query.area	Area MBID
query.artist	Artist MBID
query.collection	Collection MBID
query.place	Place MBID

Browse instruments

const instruments = await mbApi.browse('event', query);

Query argument	Query value
query.collection	Collection MBID

Browse labels

const labels = await mbApi.browse('label', query);

Query argument	Query value
query.area	Area MBID
query.collection	Collection MBID
query.release	Release MBID

Browse places

const places = await mbApi.browse('place', query);

Query argument	Query value
query.area	Area MBID
query.collection	Collection MBID

Browse recordings

const recordings = await mbApi.browse('recording', query);

Query argument	Query value
query.artist	Area MBID
query.collection	Collection MBID
query.release	Release MBID
query.work	Work MBID

Browse releases

const releases = await mbApi.browse('release', query);

Query argument	Query value
query.area	Area MBID
query.artist	Artist MBID
query.editor	Editor MBID
query.event	Event MBID
query.label	Label MBID
query.place	Place MBID
query.recording	Recording MBID
query.release	Release MBID
query.release-group	Release-group MBID
query.work	Work MBID

Browse release-groups

const releaseGroups = await mbApi.browse('release-group',query);

Query argument	Query value
query.artist	Artist MBID
query.collection	Collection MBID
query.release	Release MBID

Browse series

const series = await mbApi.browse('series');

Query argument	Query value
query.area	Area MBID
query.artist	Artist MBID
query.editor	Editor MBID
query.event	Event MBID
query.label	Label MBID
query.place	Place MBID
query.recording	Recording MBID
query.release	Release MBID
query.release-group	Release-group MBID
query.work	Work MBID

Browse works

const works = await mbApi.browse('work');

Query argument	Query value
query.artist	Artist MBID
query.xollection	Collection MBID

Browse urls

const urls = await mbApi.browse('url');

Query argument	Query value
query.artist	Artist MBID
query.xollection	Collection MBID

Search (query)

Implements XML Web Service/Version 2/Search.

There are different search fields depending on the entity.

Search function

Searches can be performed using the generic search function: query(entity: mb.EntityType, query: string | IFormData, offset?: number, limit?: number): Promise<entity>

Arguments:

• Entity type, which can be one of:
  • artist: search fields
  • label: search fields
  • recording: search fields
  • release: search fields
  • release-group: search fields
  • work: search fields
  • area: search fields
  • url: search fields
• query {query: string, offset: number, limit: number}
  • query.query: supports the full Lucene Search syntax; you can find a detailed guide at Lucene Search Syntax. For example, you can set conditions while searching for a name with the AND operator.
  • query.offset: optional, return search results starting at a given offset. Used for paging through more than one page of results.
  • limit.query: optional, an integer value defining how many entries should be returned. Only values between 1 and 100 (both inclusive) are allowed. If not given, this defaults to 25.

For example, to find any recordings of 'We Will Rock You' by Queen:

const query = 'query="We Will Rock You" AND arid:0383dadf-2a4e-4d10-a46a-e9e041da8eb3';
const result = await mbApi.search('release-group', {query});

Example: search Île-de-France

 mbApi.search('area', 'Île-de-France');

Example: search release by barcode

Search a release with the barcode 602537479870:

 mbApi.search('release', {query: {barcode: 602537479870}});

Example: search by object

Same as previous example, but automatically serialize parameters to search query

 mbApi.search('release', 'barcode: 602537479870');

Example: search artist by artist name

Search artist:

const result = await mbApi.search('artist', {query: 'Stromae'});

Example: search release-group by artist name

Search release-group:

const result = await mbApi.search('release-group', {query: 'Racine carrée'});

Example: search release-group by release-group and an artist

Search a combination of a release-group and an artist.

const result = await mbApi.search('release-group', {artist: 'Racine carrée', releasegroup: 'Stromae'});

Submitting data via XML POST

Submitting data via XML POST may be done using personal MusicBrainz credentials.

Submit ISRC code using XML POST

Using the XML ISRC submission API.

const mbid_Formidable = '16afa384-174e-435e-bfa3-5591accda31c';
const isrc_Formidable = 'BET671300161';

const xmlMetadata = new XmlMetadata();
const xmlRecording = xmlMetadata.pushRecording(mbid_Formidable);
xmlRecording.isrcList.pushIsrc(isrc_Formidable);
await mbApi.post('recording', xmlMetadata);

Submitting data via user form-data

For all of the following function you need to use a dedicated bot account.

Submitting ISRC via post user form-data

Use with caution, and only on a test server, it may clear existing metadata has side effect.

const mbid_Formidable = '16afa384-174e-435e-bfa3-5591accda31c';
const isrc_Formidable = 'BET671300161';

    
const recording = await mbApi.lookup('recording', mbid_Formidable);

// Authentication the http-session against MusicBrainz (as defined in config.baseUrl)
const succeed = await mbApi.login();
assert.isTrue(succeed, 'Login successful');

// To submit the ISRC, the `recording.id` and `recording.title` are required
await mbApi.addIsrc(recording, isrc_Formidable);

Submit recording URL

const recording = await mbApi.lookup('recording', '16afa384-174e-435e-bfa3-5591accda31c');

const succeed = await mbApi.login();
assert.isTrue(succeed, 'Login successful');

await mbApi.addUrlToRecording(recording, {
  linkTypeId: LinkType.stream_for_free,
  text: 'https://open.spotify.com/track/2AMysGXOe0zzZJMtH3Nizb'
});

Actually a Spotify-track-ID can be submitted easier:

const recording = await mbApi.lookup('recording', '16afa384-174e-435e-bfa3-5591accda31c');

const succeed = await mbApi.login();
assert.isTrue(succeed, 'Login successful');
await mbApi.addSpotifyIdToRecording(recording, '2AMysGXOe0zzZJMtH3Nizb');

Cover Art Archive API

Implementation of the Cover Art Archive API.

Release Cover Art

import { CoverArtArchiveApi } from 'musicbrainz-api';

const coverArtArchiveApiClient = new CoverArtArchiveApi();

async function getReleaseCoverArt(releaseMbid, coverType = '') {
    try {
        const coverInfo = await coverArtArchiveApiClient.getReleaseCovers(releaseMbid, coverType);
        console.log(`Cover info for ${coverType || 'all covers'}`, coverInfo);
    } catch (error) {
        console.error(`Failed to fetch ${coverType || 'all covers'}:`, error);
    }
}

(async () => {
    const releaseMbid = 'your-release-mbid-here';  // Replace with actual MBID
    await getReleaseCoverArt(releaseMbid); // Get all covers
    await getReleaseCoverArt(releaseMbid, 'front'); // Get best front cover
    await getReleaseCoverArt(releaseMbid, 'back'); // Get best back cover
})();

Release Group Cover Art

import { CoverArtArchiveApi } from 'musicbrainz-api';

const coverArtArchiveApiClient = new CoverArtArchiveApi();

async function getCoverArt(releaseGroupMbid, coverType = '') {
    try {
        const coverInfo = await coverArtArchiveApiClient.getReleaseGroupCovers(releaseGroupMbid, coverType);
        console.log(`Cover info for ${coverType || 'all covers'}`, coverInfo);
    } catch (error) {
        console.error(`Failed to fetch ${coverType || 'all covers'}:`, error);
    }
}

(async () => {
    const releaseGroupMbid = 'your-release-group-mbid-here';  // Replace with actual MBID
    await getCoverArt(releaseGroupMbid); // Get all covers
    await getCoverArt(releaseGroupMbid, 'front'); // Get best front cover
    await getCoverArt(releaseGroupMbid, 'back'); // Get best back cover
})();

Compatibility

The JavaScript in runtime is compliant with ECMAScript 2017 (ES8). Requires Node.js® version 6 or higher.