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

Solution 1:

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.

Solution 2:

I'd go with musicbrainz.

http://musicbrainz.org/doc/XML_Web_Service

http://musicbrainz.org/doc/libmusicbrainz

Solution 3:

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.

Solution 4:

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.