MusicBrainz Scraper

Scrape MusicBrainz — the world's most comprehensive open music encyclopedia with 2M+ artists, 4M+ releases, and 30M+ recordings. Search artists, albums, songs, labels, and compositions. No API key required.

What does MusicBrainz Scraper do?

This actor gives you structured data from MusicBrainz including:

• Artists — bands, solo artists, orchestras with genres, aliases, country, and active years
• Releases — albums, EPs, singles, compilations with track counts, labels, and catalog numbers
• Recordings — individual tracks/songs with duration, ISRCs, and parent releases
• Labels — record labels with country, founded year, and aliases
• Any entity by MBID — fetch full details using a MusicBrainz ID

MusicBrainz is a community-maintained open database, freely accessible with no authentication required.

Supported Modes

Mode	Description
searchArtists	Search bands and musicians by name, type, country, or genre tag
searchReleases	Search albums, singles, EPs with filters for type, artist, and year range
searchRecordings	Search individual songs/tracks by title, artist, or release
byMBID	Fetch complete details for any artist, release, recording, label, or work by ID
searchLabels	Search record labels by name and country

Input

Field	Type	Description
mode	select	What to search: searchArtists, searchReleases, searchRecordings, byMBID, searchLabels
query	text	Name/keyword to search (required for search modes)
artistType	select	Filter by type: Person, Group, Orchestra, Choir, Character, Other
country	text	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code (e.g. US, GB, DE)
tag	text	Genre/style tag filter (e.g. rock, jazz, classical)
releaseType	select	Filter releases: Album, Single, EP, Compilation, Soundtrack, Live, etc.
artistName	text	Filter releases/recordings by artist name
fromYear	integer	Filter releases from this year (1900–2100)
toYear	integer	Filter releases up to this year (1900–2100)
releaseTitle	text	Filter recordings by album/release title
mbid	text	MusicBrainz UUID for byMBID mode
entityType	select	Entity type for byMBID: artist, release, recording, label, work
maxItems	integer	Max records to return (1–500, default: 25)

Output

Artist record

{
  "mbid": "b10bbbfc-cf9e-42e0-be17-e2c3e1d2600d",
  "name": "The Beatles",
  "sortName": "Beatles, The",
  "type": "Group",
  "country": "GB",
  "area": "United Kingdom",
  "beginArea": "Liverpool",
  "beginYear": 1960,
  "endYear": 1970,
  "isEnded": true,
  "genres": ["rock", "pop", "british invasion"],
  "aliases": ["Beatles", "Fab Four"],
  "disambiguation": "John, Paul, George, and Ringo",
  "relevanceScore": 100,
  "artistUrl": "https://musicbrainz.org/artist/b10bbbfc-cf9e-42e0-be17-e2c3e1d2600d",
  "scrapedAt": "2025-05-25T10:00:00+00:00"
}

Release record

{
  "mbid": "b84ee12a-09ef-421b-82de-0441a926375b",
  "title": "Abbey Road",
  "type": "Album",
  "status": "Official",
  "date": "1969-09-26",
  "releaseYear": 1969,
  "country": "GB",
  "artistName": "The Beatles",
  "trackCount": 17,
  "label": "Apple Records",
  "catalogNumber": "PCS 7088",
  "genres": ["rock", "classic rock"],
  "releaseUrl": "https://musicbrainz.org/release/b84ee12a-09ef-421b-82de-0441a926375b",
  "scrapedAt": "2025-05-25T10:00:00+00:00"
}

Recording record

{
  "mbid": "3e30b8d9-aabe-4beb-8f21-9ee2a591d089",
  "title": "Come Together",
  "artistName": "The Beatles",
  "duration": "4:19",
  "durationMs": 259000,
  "isVideo": false,
  "isrcs": ["GBAYE6800018"],
  "releases": ["Abbey Road"],
  "genres": ["rock", "classic rock"],
  "recordingUrl": "https://musicbrainz.org/recording/3e30b8d9-aabe-4beb-8f21-9ee2a591d089",
  "scrapedAt": "2025-05-25T10:00:00+00:00"
}

Use Cases

• Music discovery — find artists, albums, and songs across all genres and countries
• Discography research — get complete release histories for any artist
• Music metadata enrichment — augment your music library with genres, ISRCs, and MBIDs
• Label research — find releases by a specific record label
• Music data analytics — build genre trend datasets and artist network graphs
• Music app development — power search and recommendation engines with rich metadata

FAQ

Q: Does this require an API key or registration? A: No. MusicBrainz provides a completely free public API. No account needed.

Q: How much data is available? A: MusicBrainz has 2M+ artists, 4M+ releases, 30M+ recordings, and growing. It covers all genres and countries worldwide.

Q: What is a MBID? A: A MusicBrainz ID (MBID) is a unique identifier in UUID format assigned to every entity in MusicBrainz. Use the byMBID mode with an MBID to fetch complete details for any entity.

Q: Can I filter artists by genre? A: Yes. Use the tag field in searchArtists mode (e.g., tag=rock, tag=jazz).

Q: Can I get all releases for a specific artist? A: Use searchReleases mode with artistName set to the artist you want. For precise results, use byMBID mode with the artist's MBID and entityType=artist which returns full discography details.

Q: What languages does MusicBrainz cover? A: All languages. MusicBrainz is a global database with entries in every language and script.

Q: Is there a rate limit? A: With the included User-Agent header, MusicBrainz allows 50 requests/second. This actor politely uses 10 req/sec.

Q: Is this free to run on Apify? A: Yes. No proxy, no API key, no paid add-ons required. Runs on the Apify free plan.