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MusicBrainz Music Metadata API Scraper

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MusicBrainz Music Metadata API Scraper

Search and look up music metadata from MusicBrainz — the open music encyclopedia. Retrieve artists, release groups, recordings, labels, and works with full relationship graphs, genre tags, and cross-platform ID resolution.

No API key required.

What you get

Each record includes:

  • MBID — the MusicBrainz identifier, the stable cross-database join key used by Spotify, Discogs, Last.fm, Wikidata, and every other major music service
  • Entity metadata — name, type, country, active dates, area
  • Tags and genres — community-sourced, sorted by vote count
  • Aliases — alternative names with locale and alias type
  • External IDs — links to Discogs, Wikidata, AllMusic, IMDb, VIAF, and streaming platforms (when relations are enabled)
  • Relationships — artist members, labels, recording-of-work links, and more (when relations are enabled)
  • ISRCs / ISWCs — international recording and work identifiers

Entity types supported

Type Description
artist Individual musicians, bands, orchestras, and other performing groups
release-group Albums, singles, EPs, and compilations
release Specific editions or pressings of a release group
recording Individual tracks with ISRC codes and performance credits
label Record labels with label codes and catalogs
work Musical compositions with ISWC codes and lyricist/composer credits

Usage modes

Search mode (default)

Provide a free-text query and entityType. Returns up to maxItems matching results sorted by relevance score.

{
  "entityType": "artist",
  "query": "radiohead",
  "maxItems": 10
}

Lucene syntax is supported for precise queries:

{
  "entityType": "artist",
  "query": "type:group country:GB",
  "maxItems": 25
}

MBID lookup mode

Provide an mbid to fetch the full entity record with all available sub-resources expanded. This is the recommended path when you already know the identifier.

{
  "entityType": "artist",
  "mbid": "a74b1b7f-71a5-4011-9441-d0b5e4122711"
}

Relationship expansion

Set includeRelations: true to add external IDs and artist/label relationships to search results. MBID lookups always include full relationship data.

{
  "entityType": "recording",
  "query": "karma police",
  "includeRelations": true,
  "maxItems": 5
}

Output schema

Field Type Description
mbid string MusicBrainz identifier
entity_type string artist / release-group / release / recording / label / work
name string Primary name
sort_name string Canonical sort name (e.g. "Beatles, The")
disambiguation string Disambiguation note for name conflicts
type string Entity subtype (Group, Album, Single, etc.)
country string ISO 3166-1 country code
life_span_begin string Start of active period
life_span_end string End of active period
life_span_ended boolean Whether the entity is no longer active
area_name string Geographic area
aliases string JSON array of {name, locale, type}
tags string Comma-separated community tags (by vote count)
genres string Comma-separated genres (by vote count)
isrcs string ISRC codes for recordings
iswcs string ISWC codes for works
first_release_date string Date of first release
release_count integer Number of associated releases
label_code string Label code (labels only)
score integer Search relevance score (0-100)
artist_credit string Artist credit string (recordings / release groups)
relations_summary string JSON array of linked entities
external_ids string JSON object mapping service names to URLs

Rate limiting

MusicBrainz enforces a limit of 1 request per second for anonymous access. This actor enforces a 1.1-second delay between requests and sends a descriptive User-Agent header per MusicBrainz policy. Runs will be slower than you might expect — this is intentional to protect your IP from being blocked.

Common use cases

Music data pipelines — use the MBID as a universal join key across Spotify, Discogs, Last.fm, and Wikidata datasets.

Cross-ID resolution — look up an MBID from a Discogs or Wikidata identifier by searching with known identifiers.

Catalog enrichment — enrich a list of artist names with canonical MBIDs, genres, and external service links.

Work and recording metadata — fetch ISRC/ISWC codes for licensing and rights management workflows.

Technical notes

  • Data source: MusicBrainz Web Service v2
  • No authentication required
  • Datacenter proxies are not needed — MusicBrainz does not block by IP
  • Pagination: search results paginate via offset/limit up to 100 per page
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