MusicBrainz Scraper · Artists, Releases, Labels & Recordings

The MusicBrainz scraper extracts comprehensive, structured music database records directly from the official MusicBrainz REST API (https://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/). Query artists, releases, record labels, and sound recordings with custom Lucene search queries, genre tags, ISO country codes, and release decades. Every row includes standard addressable entity slugs (slug), canonical MusicBrainz UUIDs (mbid), credit information, track counts, release dates, and barcodes.

Maintained by reapX. Every row cites the Apify run that produced it — nothing is inferred, modelled or filled in, and a field absent from the source is absent from the row. The extracted archive for this source is browsable at reapx.dev/data/musicbrainz-scraper/ and mirrored as an open dataset on Hugging Face and Kaggle. Questions: reapxdev@proton.me

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Features

• Multi-Entity Extraction: Retrieve structured data for Artists, Releases, Labels, and Recordings.
• Addressable Entity Key: Emits a normalized slug (e.g. the-beatles, pink-floyd, abbey-road) for direct entity page routing and indexing across knowledge graphs.
• Canonical MBIDs: Preserves exact 36-character MusicBrainz UUID identifiers in the mbid field.
• Rich Lucene Search Support: Combine free-text queries, genre tags (tag:rock), country codes (country:GB), and decade ranges (date:[1970 TO 1979]).
• Compliant Rate Limiting: Built-in 1 request per second throttling with automatic exponential backoff on HTTP 429 and 503 status codes.
• No Headless Browser Overhead: Uses direct HTTP API calls for maximum efficiency and speed.
• Pay-Per-Event Pricing: Billed strictly per valid record returned; rate-limited, empty, or failed requests cost $0.

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⬇️ Input

Configure the MusicBrainz Scraper using the input parameters below.

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description	Example
entityType	string	Yes	"artist"	Select MusicBrainz entity category: artist, release, label, or recording.	"artist"
query	string	No	"tag:rock AND country:GB"	Free-text keyword query or custom Lucene search string.	"artist:Pink Floyd"
genre	string	No	""	Musical genre or community style tag filter.	"jazz"
country	string	No	""	2-letter ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code.	"GB"
decade	string	No	""	Release or activity decade filter (e.g. 1970s, 1980s).	"1970s"
maxResults	integer	Yes	50	Maximum number of entity records to extract and push.	50

Input Example

{
  "entityType": "release",
  "query": "tag:jazz AND country:US",
  "genre": "jazz",
  "country": "US",
  "decade": "1960s",
  "maxResults": 50
}

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⬆️ Output

The scraper writes extracted records directly to the run's default dataset. Each row corresponds to a single MusicBrainz entity.

Output Dataset Fields

Field Name	Type	Description	Example
slug	string	Normalized URL-friendly slug derived from entity name or title.	"the-beatles"
mbid	string	Canonical 36-character MusicBrainz UUID identifier.	"b10bbbfc-cf9e-42e0-be17-e2c3e1d2600d"
name	string	Human-readable name of the artist, release, label, or recording.	"The Beatles"
entityType	string	Category of entity (artist, release, label, recording).	"artist"
type	string	Subtype classification (e.g. Group, Person, Album, Single).	"Group"
country	string	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code of origin.	"GB"
area	string	Associated geographic area or region name.	"United Kingdom"
disambiguation	string	MusicBrainz comment distinguishing identical entity names.	"UK rock band"
date	string	Primary release date or activity start date.	"1969-09-26"
lifeSpanStart	string	Formation or birth date.	"1960"
lifeSpanEnd	string	Dissolution or death date.	"1970"
tags	string	Comma-separated genre and style tags.	"rock, pop, classic rock"
score	integer	Search relevance score (0–100).	100
barcode	string	Commercial EAN/UPC barcode (releases).	"077774644624"
artistCredit	string	Credited artists or collaborators.	"The Beatles"
label	string	Associated record label name(s).	"Apple Records"
format	string	Physical or digital format (e.g. Vinyl, CD).	"Vinyl"
trackCount	integer	Total number of tracks on release.	17
length	integer	Duration in milliseconds (recordings).	260000
url	string	Canonical MusicBrainz entity webpage URL.	"https://musicbrainz.org/artist/b10bbbfc-cf9e-42e0-be17-e2c3e1d2600d"

Sample Output Record

{
  "slug": "pink-floyd",
  "mbid": "83d91898-7763-47d7-b03b-b92132375c47",
  "name": "Pink Floyd",
  "entityType": "artist",
  "type": "Group",
  "country": "GB",
  "area": "United Kingdom",
  "disambiguation": "UK progressive rock band",
  "date": "1965",
  "lifeSpanStart": "1965",
  "lifeSpanEnd": "2014",
  "tags": "progressive rock, psychedelic rock, art rock",
  "score": 100,
  "barcode": "",
  "artistCredit": "",
  "label": "",
  "format": "",
  "trackCount": 0,
  "length": 0,
  "url": "https://musicbrainz.org/artist/83d91898-7763-47d7-b03b-b92132375c47"
}

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How it works

1. HTTP Query Execution: Sends direct GET requests to https://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/{entity} without launching headless browser instances.
2. Lucene Search Integration: Translates input parameters (keywords, genre, country, decade) into standard MusicBrainz Lucene query syntax.
3. Rate Limiting & Resiliency: Enforces a strict 1 request/second rule with User-Agent: reapx/1.0 ( reapxdev@proton.me ) and exponential backoff retry on HTTP 429 or 503 responses.
4. Key Normalization: Automatically transforms entity names into clean, lowercased ASCII slugs (slug), while preserving exact MusicBrainz UUIDs (mbid).
5. Streaming Output: Emits items row-by-row into the default dataset as they are fetched.

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❓ FAQ

How are MusicBrainz rate limits handled?

MusicBrainz requires clients to limit requests to 1 per second and present a descriptive User-Agent header. This scraper enforces rate limits natively and retries transparently if temporary rate limit errors (HTTP 429/503) occur.

Can I search using complex Lucene queries?

Yes. You can supply full Lucene query strings in the query field, such as artist:"Miles Davis" AND type:Album AND date:[1950 TO 1960].

What is the slug field used for?

The slug field provides a clean, predictable URL identifier (e.g. pink-floyd) suitable for entity page routing, knowledge graph cross-linking, and dataset deduplication.

How does pricing work?

This actor runs under Pay-Per-Event pricing. You are charged a flat micro-fee per valid entity record returned. Searches yielding zero results or failing due to rate limits cost nothing.

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💬 Your feedback

Have feature requests, questions, or bug reports? Reach out directly to reapx:

• Email: reapxdev@proton.me
• Data Hub: reapx.dev/data/musicbrainz-scraper/

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Disclaimer: Unofficial - not affiliated with MusicBrainz / MetaBrainz Foundation. Collects public data only. reapx. Contact reapxdev@proton.me.

🧪 Example input

A real, runnable configuration — this is an actual input this Actor has run with.

{
  "entityType": "artist",
  "query": "tag:rock AND country:US",
  "genre": "rock",
  "country": "US",
  "decade": "1960s",
  "maxResults": 50
}

📄 Sample output

One real row from a real run of this Actor, unedited.

{
  "slug": "the-beatles",
  "mbid": "b10bbbfc-cf9e-42e0-be17-e2c3e1d2600d",
  "name": "The Beatles",
  "entityType": "artist",
  "type": "Group",
  "country": "GB",
  "area": "United Kingdom",
  "disambiguation": "UK rock band, “The Fab Four”",
  "date": "1960-03-27",
  "lifeSpanStart": "1960-03-27",
  "lifeSpanEnd": "1970-04-10",
  "tags": "rock, pop, progressive rock, 80s, heavy metal, pop-rock, orchestral, experimental, british, uk, 60s, hard rock, indie rock, folk rock, psychedelic rock, psychedelic, blues rock, britpop, art rock, folk-rock, baroque pop, classic rock, 1960s, psychedelic pop, experimental rock, pop rock, europop, british invasion, rock and roll, rock roll, beat, english, sunshine pop, folk pop, rock music, liverpool, parlophone, united kingdom, hair metal, europe, 1, bbc, film soundtrack, classic pop and rock, singer songwriter, classical pop, instrumental pop, merseybeat, adult alternative pop rock, tribute albums, british psychedelia, orchestral pop, pop-metal, psychedelia, male vocalists, the-beatles, mainstream rock, boys band, abbey road, rock & roll, pop/rock, rhythm & blues, overrated, psychedelic/garage, art pop, one beatles, n., popular music, a filk artist, british rhythm & blues, beat music, get back, favoritos, the beatles - primal colours, reino unido, rock groups, vyrzukhisuc-artiest",
  "score": 100,
  "barcode": "",
  "artistCredit": "",
  "label": "",
  "format": "",
  "trackCount": 0,
  "length": 0,
  "url": "https://musicbrainz.org/artist/b10bbbfc-cf9e-42e0-be17-e2c3e1d2600d"
}

⚠️ Run outcomes and error handling

This Actor reports what happened in the run's status message, and it always keeps whatever it collected. These are the outcomes you can get and what each one means.

Outcome	What it means
Success	Rows were returned and you were charged record-returned at $0.002 per row.
No matches	The source returned nothing for your filters. Nothing is charged. Widen the date window or drop a filter.

What is guaranteed either way

• Every row is pushed as it is built, not buffered to the end of the run. Anything that buffers output loses everything to a timeout, a block or a migration; this does not.
• A field absent from the source is absent from the row. Nothing is inferred, modelled or filled in to make a row look complete.