You need it – you really do – but might not know about the tool. Or perhaps you’re not using it to its full potential. Launched 25 years ago, MusicBrainz and its extension ListenBrainz revolutionized both music information sources and listening recommendations. The good news? Everything is now compatible with Soundiiz. Are MusicBrainz and ListenBrainz the biggest music databases and the finest recommendation systems?
Let’s see!
Key takeaways
- MusicBrainz is one of the biggest open-source music databases, centralizing reliable metadata about artists, albums, labels, credits, concerts, and releases collected over 25 years.
- ListenBrainz works as an independent music recommendation system and “scrobbler,” tracking listening history privately to generate personalized recommendations outside streaming platform algorithms.
- Because MetaBrainz operates as a non-profit organization, MusicBrainz and ListenBrainz remain independent from labels and streaming services, ensuring transparent and unbiased music data.
- Soundiiz now connects with MusicBrainz and ListenBrainz, allowing users to export catalogs, playlists, listening statistics, and recommendations to platforms like Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and TIDAL.
AI-generated summary
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
MusicBrainz – The biggest music databases and the finest recommendation systems
Music is everywhere, all the time. And streaming has amplified its presence. Since the 2000s, millions of songs have appeared online, becoming listenable and shareable. And millions of data have been made available. Information on albums, tracklists, discographies, concerts, videos—so much so that it’s dizzying. But where to store this data? Where to find this information?
In a world where everything moves very fast and information is scattered, it’s essential to have a platform that centralizes everything. And that is constantly updated, collecting everything that can be collected. Then, to make it available to everyone as an open source platform.
Let’s just say the name, MusicBrainz, is quite fitting. It is literally a gigantic brain that summarizes everything you want to know about your favorite albums, songwriters, and so on. Where you can access everything related to music, including artists, labels, etc.
And it’s been around for 25 years! In 25 years, you can imagine that MusicBrainz has had time to amass an incredible amount of data, which is now accessible in just a few clicks. For example, you simply enter an artist’s name in the MusicBrainz website’s search bar to access all the existing information about them.
This provides access to sourced, reliable, and accurate information. In an increasingly digital world, data must be archived and shared. It is especially true in the music industry, where the physical market has declined significantly in favor of digital.
From physical to digital
In this context, it’s difficult to read credits, liner notes, and other information that were previously available on CDs or vinyl records. MusicBrainz aims to fill these gaps. Thanks to carefully selected contributors tasked with verifying information and rights, MusicBrainz functions much like Wikipedia, putting up barriers to protect the sources and information made available.
Many users utilize MusicBrainz to catalog the music they own at home, for example, on physical formats. This gives them access, in black and white, to their music catalog, which they can browse at their leisure. Because it operates independently of a streaming platform, where info is hard to find, especially when it comes to producer credits, mixing engineers, etc, the data in MusicBrainz is generally less extensive and easier to read.
It’s also a way to blend digital and physical media while retaining the numerous advantages of online storage. In 2012, MusicBrainz forged a partnership with the Internet Archive for image uploading and storage. And two years ago, another initiative in collaboration with the Internet Archive launched: Event Art Archive. This project is dedicated to archiving artwork related to events, such as festivals or concerts.
Non-profit
Note that MetaBrainz, a non-profit organization, owns MusicBrainz. It means that MusicBrainz has no commercial objectives and is not affiliated with any structure (e.g., a label, streaming platform, or other). This 100% independent operation allows for transparency and freedom in the information collected, ensuring it is not biased toward any artist or label.
At Soundiiz, we are also committed to making music accessible to as many people as possible, and above all, to ensuring it is accessible under the right conditions. We share with MusicBrainz a passion for music and a commitment to protecting artists and their associated data. It was therefore perfectly logical for us to make our tools compatible and connectable!
The biggest music databases and the finest recommendation systems – ListenBrainz
Are you familiar with Last.fm? This tool, used worldwide, lets you view the history of the songs you listen to throughout the day.
ListenBrainz works similarly. It’s called a “scrobbler”: an application that runs in the background on your computer and collects data about what you listen to, whether it’s a media player or a streaming platform. It stores this data in a database, without sharing it with anyone but you. 100% private, unless you decide otherwise.
ListenBrainz can then show you, in black and white, what you listened to most over a week, a month, or a year. It’s a bit like the recaps different streaming platforms publish at various times of the year, but more comprehensive and easier to access.
Precise and independent
ListenBrainz doesn’t just work with streaming services; it works with everything you use to listen to music online. The usefulness of ListenBrainz became even more apparent when Last.fm was sold to CBS Corporation in 2007 for several hundred million dollars. Rumors surfaced that CBS intended to discontinue Last.fm’s “scrobbler” feature, leaving the community worried about future developments.
ListenBrainz is a listening aggregator and a platform that generates recommendations based on your listening history. Many music enthusiasts use ListenBrainz to discover new artists and albums rather than the streaming platform’s algorithms. Backed by the MusicBrainz database, ListenBrainz can benefit from an unlimited source of songs to tailor their recommandations. And like MusicBrainz, it operates independently of record labels and streaming services.
It will take a few days of using ListenBrainz for the recommendations to become as accurate as possible. Still, once that’s done, and once your listening history is substantial enough, you’ll find the tool remarkably effective.
It acts as a perfect complement to streaming platforms. The recommendations are different and can then be manipulated via Soundiiz, exported, and shared in minutes.
We’ll explain how below!
The biggest music databases and the finest recommendation systems: How to connect them?
You’re starting to get to know us: Soundiiz is committed to making its services compatible with all available tools. And for several months, we’ve been working on compatibility between Soundiiz, MusicBrainz, and ListenBrainz. It’s now a reality!
Many people use MusicBrainz to re-encode their music catalog, which they often own on CD, cassette, or vinyl. The problem: this data is stored only in their MusicBrainz account and cannot be exported. Many music lovers would like to be able to listen to the tracks they also listen to at home on their turntable or CD player digitally on Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, TIDAL, Qobuz, or other platforms. By connecting MusicBrainz to your Soundiiz account, this is now possible.
We are now able to retrieve all the data stored on MusicBrainz and then host it on Soundiiz. Once this data is in your account, you can do whatever you want with it using the range of options available on Soundiiz. For example, you can transfer this data to your Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, or any other streaming platform you use.
Or you can download this data in .CSV format to store it somewhere, such as your Google Drive, so it never disappears and can be shared.
Linking everything!
Think of Soundiiz as a way to access and manipulate data as you see fit. Soundiiz is a bridge between services like MusicBrainz and Spotify! A bridge that didn’t exist before, since most tools don’t allow you to export the data stored within them. Soundiiz removes these barriers!
It’s the same principle with ListenBrainz: Soundiiz can now connect to this tool and retrieve the stored data. ListenBrainz is a powerful platform for music recommendations: their weekly, monthly, and yearly top lists are exportable via Soundiiz, as are the recommendations generated from their listening history. With Soundiiz, you can export these song and album lists to your Soundiiz account to manage them as you wish, and also transfer them to your preferred streaming platform.
As you can see, data is becoming increasingly fluid, can be stored in multiple locations, and connections are being created between platforms that were previously complementary but lacked a way to link them.
Our tools are designed to give you as much freedom and independence as possible, while still connecting you with existing services. It’s a way to connect music lovers and cover all usage needs.
To try Soundiiz services, click here!
