MusicBrainz Scraper

Pull structured music metadata from MusicBrainz at scale — artists, albums, recordings, labels, works, and more, complete with stable MusicBrainz IDs, community genres and ratings, ISRC and ISWC codes, and official streaming and social links. Search by keyword or look up exact entities by link or ID, then export clean rows to JSON, CSV, or Excel. Built for music-app developers, catalog and rights teams, and researchers who need canonical music data without hand-querying an open encyclopedia one page at a time.

Why This Scraper?

• All 11 MusicBrainz entity types in one actor — artists/bands, albums (release groups), releases, recordings (tracks), labels, works (compositions), areas, places, events, series, and instruments. Search or look up any of them.
• Two ways in: keyword search or direct MBID/URL lookup — run fuzzy keyword searches across millions of entities, or paste a MusicBrainz page link or MusicBrainz ID (MBID) to pull one exact record with zero ambiguity.
• Community genres and tags with vote counts — every result can carry crowd-curated genres and folksonomy tags plus the number of community votes behind each, sorted most-voted first.
• Community star ratings with vote counts — the 0–5 rating and how many people voted, on every entity type that supports it.
• Official links from the relationship graph — homepage, streaming (Spotify, Apple Music, and more), social media, Discogs, and Wikidata URLs pulled straight from each entity's relationships.
• ISRC, ISWC, and barcode identifiers — recording ISRCs, work ISWCs, and release barcodes surface on the row for rights matching and catalog reconciliation.
• Stable MBID and canonical URL on every row — each result carries its permanent 36-character MusicBrainz Identifier and musicbrainz.org page URL, so you can join, dedupe, and re-fetch reliably across runs.
• Uncapped pagination — reaches far past MusicBrainz's 100-per-page ceiling, up to 50,000 matching entities per search term.
• Batch many terms and links in one run — pass a list of search terms and a list of entity links together; each term produces its own result set.

Use Cases

Music Data & Catalog Enrichment

• Match an internal track catalog to canonical MBIDs, ISRCs, and first-release dates
• Fill gaps with artist countries, formation dates, sort names, and aliases
• Deduplicate artist and release records against MusicBrainz's permanent IDs
• Attach community genres and tags to catalog entries for richer browse and search

Media & Streaming Apps

• Power artist, album, and track pages with clean, structured metadata
• Pull homepage, streaming, and social URLs to link out from your app
• Show track lengths, release dates, and credited-artist strings on player screens
• Surface alternate names and spellings so search matches more of your users

Rights, Licensing & Label Operations

• Resolve ISRCs and ISWCs for rights matching and royalty workflows
• Look up label rosters and release barcodes for catalog audits
• Cross-reference Discogs and Wikidata IDs pulled from relationship links
• Reconcile release editions (specific pressings) against canonical MBIDs

Research & Musicology

• Build datasets of artists, works, and recordings for academic study
• Trace an artist's aliases and name variants across languages
• Map places (studios, venues) and events (concerts, festivals) for music-history projects
• Analyze genre and tag distributions across thousands of releases

Data Journalism & Analytics

• Rank artists or labels by community rating and vote count
• Chart releases by year, country, or genre
• Fact-check discographic details against a community-maintained source
• Build "most-tagged genre" or "highest-rated album" leaderboards

Getting Started

Simple Artist Search

The simplest possible run — one band, 25 results:

{
    "searchQueries": ["Radiohead"],
    "entityType": "artist",
    "maxResults": 25
}

Album Search with Genres and Ratings

Search for albums (release groups) and enrich each with community genres, tags, and star ratings:

{
    "searchQueries": ["Abbey Road", "OK Computer"],
    "entityType": "release-group",
    "includeTags": true,
    "includeRatings": true,
    "maxResults": 50
}

Direct Lookup by Link or ID (All Enrichment On)

Fetch exact entities by MusicBrainz URL or bare MBID, with genres, ratings, and links all turned on:

{
    "entityUrls": [
        "https://musicbrainz.org/artist/a74b1b7f-71a5-4011-9441-d0b5e4122711",
        "5b11f4ce-a62d-471e-81fc-a69a8278c7da"
    ],
    "entityType": "artist",
    "includeTags": true,
    "includeRatings": true,
    "includeRelationships": true
}

Input Reference

What to Fetch

At least one of searchQueries or entityUrls is needed — you can use both in the same run.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
searchQueries	string[]	["Radiohead"]	Search terms to find music entities, e.g. "Radiohead", "Abbey Road", or "Blue Note". Each term produces its own set of results.
entityType	select	Artist / Band	What kind of entity your search terms should match: Artist / Band, Album (Release Group), Release (Specific Edition), Recording (Track), Label, Work (Composition), Area, Place, Event, Series, or Instrument.
entityUrls	string[]	[]	MusicBrainz page links (e.g. https://musicbrainz.org/artist/a74b1b7f-...) or bare MusicBrainz IDs to fetch those exact entities. A bare ID is treated as the entity type selected above.

Results

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
maxResults	integer	100	Maximum results per search term. Set to 0 for all available results, up to a safety limit of 50,000 per term.

Extra Details

Each toggle fetches a bit more per result, which adds runtime. All off with a keyword search returns search fields only.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
includeTags	boolean	true	Add community-curated genres and tags with their vote counts to each result.
includeRatings	boolean	false	Add the community star rating (0–5) and number of votes to each result.
includeRelationships	boolean	false	Add related links — official website, streaming, social media, Discogs, Wikidata — and connections to other entities such as band members or labels.

Output

Each result is one flat row. Empty fields are omitted, so the fields present depend on the entity type and which enrichment toggles are on. Here is a representative artist result with all enrichment enabled:

{
    "entityType": "artist",
    "mbid": "a74b1b7f-71a5-4011-9441-d0b5e4122711",
    "name": "Radiohead",
    "sortName": "Radiohead",
    "disambiguation": "English rock band",
    "type": "Group",
    "score": 100,
    "country": "GB",
    "area": "United Kingdom",
    "beginDate": "1991",
    "aliases": ["On a Friday"],
    "tags": [
        { "name": "rock", "count": 12 },
        { "name": "alternative rock", "count": 9 }
    ],
    "genres": [
        { "name": "art rock", "count": 7 }
    ],
    "rating": 4.5,
    "ratingVotes": 128,
    "relationships": [
        { "type": "official homepage", "url": "https://www.radiohead.com/", "target": "url" },
        { "type": "streaming", "url": "https://open.spotify.com/artist/4Z8W4fKeB5YxbusRsdQVPb", "target": "url" }
    ],
    "musicBrainzUrl": "https://musicbrainz.org/artist/a74b1b7f-71a5-4011-9441-d0b5e4122711",
    "searchQuery": "Radiohead",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-07-24T14:30:00Z"
}

Core Fields

Field	Type	Description
entityType	string	Which of the 11 entity types this row is (artist, release-group, recording, ...)
mbid	string	Permanent MusicBrainz Identifier (36-character UUID) for this entity
name	string	Display name or title of the entity
sortName	string	Sortable form of the name (e.g. "Beatles, The")
disambiguation	string	Short note distinguishing same-named entities
type	string	Entity sub-type (e.g. Group / Person for artists, Album / Single for albums)
score	number	Search relevance score, 0–100 (search results only)
musicBrainzUrl	string	Canonical musicbrainz.org page URL
searchQuery	string	The search term that produced this row (search results only)
scrapedAt	string	ISO timestamp of extraction

Details, Dates & Identifiers

Field	Type	Description
country	string	ISO country code
area	string	Associated area name — country, region, or city
beginDate	string	Start date — formation, birth, or founding
endDate	string	End date — dissolution or death, when applicable
firstReleaseDate	string	First release date (albums / release groups)
date	string	Release or event date
artistCredit	string	Credited-artist string with join phrases preserved
length	number	Track length in milliseconds (recordings)
lengthFormatted	string	Track length as m:ss
barcode	string	Release barcode (UPC / EAN)
trackCount	number	Number of tracks on a release
isrcs	string[]	Recording ISRC codes
iswcs	string[]	Work ISWC codes
aliases	string[]	Alternate names and spellings

Genres & Tags

Populated when Include Genres & Tags is on.

Field	Type	Description
tags	object[]	Community tags as {name, count}, sorted by vote count
genres	object[]	Community genres as {name, count}, sorted by vote count

Ratings

Populated when Include Ratings is on.

Field	Type	Description
rating	number	Community star rating, 0–5
ratingVotes	number	Number of community votes behind the rating

Links & Relationships

Populated when Include Links & Relationships is on.

Field	Type	Description
relationships	object[]	Related URLs as {type, url, target} — homepage, streaming, social, Discogs, Wikidata

Tips for Best Results

• Pick the right entity type. Your search terms only match the type you select — choose "Album (Release Group)" for records, "Recording (Track)" for individual tracks, and "Label" for imprints. A wrong type quietly returns the wrong kind of match.
• Use direct link/ID lookup for exact entities. When you already know the entity, paste its MusicBrainz link or MBID into Entity Links or IDs. It fetches that exact record instead of a fuzzy keyword guess — ideal for enriching a known list of MBIDs.
• Keep enrichment focused. Each of Genres & Tags, Ratings, and Links adds one extra lookup per result, so a large run with all three on does far more work than a plain search. Narrow your result count when you turn them on. Recording ISRCs specifically only populate when at least one enrichment toggle is on.
• Sharpen searches with field syntax. MusicBrainz search accepts Lucene-style terms like artist:Radiohead AND country:GB, or wrap a phrase in quotes ("Abbey Road") for exact matches — far more precise than a bare keyword.
• Sort your dataset by score. Every search row carries a 0–100 relevance score; sort by it to float the best matches to the top before you filter.
• Set Max Results to 0 for everything. A single term can pull up to 50,000 matching entities — so use a specific query to get the right 50,000, not the broadest possible net.
• Series and Instruments carry no ratings. Those two entity types don't support community ratings; every other type does, so don't expect a rating field on them.

Pricing

From $0.55 per 1,000 results — flat pay-per-result pricing for canonical music metadata, with genres, ratings, and links bundled at no extra charge. Bronze, Silver, and Gold subscribers pay progressively less; the table below shows total cost at each discount tier.

Results	No discount	Bronze	Silver	Gold
100	$0.066	$0.062	$0.058	$0.055
1,000	$0.66	$0.62	$0.58	$0.55
10,000	$6.60	$6.20	$5.80	$5.50
100,000	$66.00	$62.00	$58.00	$55.00

A "result" is any entity row in the output dataset — one per search hit or per looked-up entity. No compute or time-based charges — you pay per result, plus a small fixed per-run start fee.

Integrations

Export data in JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or RSS. Connect to 1,500+ apps via:

• Zapier / Make / n8n — Workflow automation
• Google Sheets — Direct spreadsheet export
• Slack / Email — Notifications on new results
• Webhooks — Trigger custom APIs on run completion
• Apify API — Full programmatic access

Legal & Ethical Use

This actor reads publicly available metadata from MusicBrainz, whose core data is released into the public domain (CC0) while some supplementary content carries a Creative Commons license. Please respect MusicBrainz's terms of use and attribution guidelines when redistributing data, and use the actor at a courteous request rate. You are responsible for complying with applicable laws and for using extracted data ethically — not for spam, harassment, or any illegal purpose.