August 23rd: "Sadly, Producers & Engineers Are Still Invisible on Digital Music Services..."

Lame... all they do is display the wikipedia article about the band... not even the album or song level data.

There will be difference if spotify just adds an external link for wikipedia.

if you don't give the users a fun experience to make the content exciteing, no one is gonna care IMHO..

But Wikipedia blows.

Next!

Seems more like the weekend hack then a real app release.  Does Spotify review these before they go live?

Thanks for story Paul but we are bringing up Die Antwood credits here no problem.  Yes our app works at the album level as per discogs (perhaps you were listening to single?) and has some limitations but overall integration with discogs and spotify is growing and results are getting better. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet. Bringing the credits in even at this level is no small feat. Not sure why you had the Die Antwood issue here, but give it another go. Here is a link to our pic: http://ow.ly/i/120qz. Maybe you can repost.

FYI Music Lover we are working on the idea of interactive credits for a future rev!

As for the Mumford issue this may have to do with the fact that you are not listening to the main release but the deluxe version? if you load the main release of Babel you will see the credits.  This is a limitation of discogs search engine but is improving daily. We are the first service of its kind and free to boot, so although some albums fall short, many are rich with info.

Right.  I'm just commenting on the testing window yesterday, in which it did not work - for Mumford, Die Antwoord, AraabMUZIK, Suffocation, or any other band/song we tested. 

/paul

Just checked again today -- same issues, with all the artists.  Credits don't load, everything just hangs indefinitely leaving the credit field empty for the same artists -- Mumford (Sigh No More original release), AraabMUZIK, Die Antwoord, etc.

I'll let it hang indefinitely to see if it finally loads, but I think there's a problem with the call.

/paul

We changed key release on discogs for mumford "sigh no more" to version with credits.  die antwoord is working for both their major releases. AraabMUZIK's albums have no credits on discogs. if you are still having issues maybe restart.  thanks for your feedback!! keep us posted.

Hey man, are you sure you're not having probs with Spotify? I'm not having the loading problems you're having and I've been using it since Tuesday.

thanks for the tip. mumford issue is desrbied above, but several of those albums have no credits on discogs.  we were able to make a change to the key release on Suffocation's record on discogs.com and now the credits load for Blood Oath. Have a look! this is the nice thing that user's can actually make a difference by tweaking the discogs DB on their own.

Why not do the hard work and start gathering accurate album credits from hard copy CDs and create your own, thorough database?

It's half-assed to use someone elses.  IF you want something more complete, at least license data from Allmusic.com.

thanks jeff. we tried rovi (all music) data first but it was not as complete as discogs.  plus rovi is corporate and discogs was started by a record collector and is user generated. if u don't like what u see... tweak it. power to the people!

Is it possible to contain the information for songwriters, performers, producers and copyrightholders of each individual song all in the metadata? How hard can it be?

How about in all digital delivery formats?

If it can be done, wouldn't rights holders want it in there so that they get paid the proper amount in a timely fashion? 

or maybe rights holders don't want all of that information in there.

Maybe they prefer to keep consumers blissfully unaware that a record label and a publishing company owns all of the rights to the song and not the performers, songwriters and producers?

There is already an app - 3DiCD - which enables people to browse a 'virtual' CD, with liner notes, etc.  The contents are provided by the artist or label concerned.  Some of them can be viewed freely at the 3DiCD website,  others are only available with purchase of a download.  I don't know whether they could be linked in to Spotify, etc., but I don't see why not.

Doesn't spotify already scrape info from allmusic?

Yes but this app pulls data from wikipedia instead.

But this one goes to 11...

Listening to Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone. h1tchr pulls discog info for a 1984 live performance of the single Highway 61 Revisited. http://www.discogs.com/release/2957217

You're going to need a lot more crowd sourcing than just "Add credits at discogs.com." First & foremost, Spotify's catalog has to be linked to the correct release. But I DO think that a combination of pre-existing databases, crowd sourced administration, & label participation going forward is the way to most effectively accomplish this.

Also h1tchr is a terrible name. And the weight of the 1s in the logo is totally off, makes it read like a bracket. And their twitter logo is out of date. (Just trying to be helpful.)

Better yet, distributors get the music to encode and distribute...I think we 'indie' releases that are CDR or .mp3-only, you might be talking about an 'illegitimate release' meaning there are no artist/label unique ISRCs and UPC for the project, let alone liner notes.  CD baby makes millions from dealing poorly with illegitimate releases.  With so much indie music out there, they are a majority of the problem- or Tunecore or The Orchard, etc.

There's a number of pain points. Indie releases are one, but extremely popular albums that have been reprinted a number of times are another.

Highway 61 Revisited is an album, but it's also a song. It's been pressed several times in mono & in stereo on different formats, & remastered in both mono & stereo several times (necessitating different credits). The song has been released at least twice officially as a live recording (one of those officially as a single, which makes it a conflicting album title), & as an "alternative take" on the No Direction Home soundtrack.

Furthermore, you have bands like Weezer who have released an album titled Weezer twice (Blue & Green), & several different editions of each.

Spotify has their own numbering system, which doesn't correspond with the catalog numbers that a database like discogs.com relies on. Even using sophisticated search algorithms, it's hard to match what's on Spotify with what's in the database, & sometimes there is no physical release that corresponds. In each of these cases, a real person has to sort things out.

well said jw! the highway 61 issue is exactly as you state. discogs has a single and album of the same name. we have a note in to discogs on this item. the good news is discogs are working with us and potentially moving their credits for releases to master listing which will make h1tchr even smoother. its a big job but we are working on it!

I don't know if simply making a note is going to suffice.

For instance, Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin' links to a 1988 Duchesse Records release by the same name, which is a compilation & is listed as an "unofficial release." (http://www.discogs.com/Bob-Dylan-The-Times-They-Are-A-Changin/master/304368) International releases are certain to cause many title conflicts.

Is it possible to prioritize the oldest release by the name, rather than the newest? And is it possible to crosscheck, if not tracklistings, then number of tracks (this would account for re-releases with bonus tracks that may have different credits than the original)?

I don't know if the APIs give you access to this, or if it's practical bandwidth-wise, but it seems like a simple title search isn't going to cut the mustard, & a tracklisting-to-tracklisting comparison is the only thing that's really going to whip the app into shape.

very helpful jw...thanks for this.  the data sometimes lacks structure and search strings can be limited.  i will forward your comments to our techs and see what they come up with.

But what? Every Spotify App isn't totally awesome and like, amazing?  (see: Eliot Van Buskirk and Echo Nest propoganda machine)

I asked RDIO via a tweet why there are not liner notes for every release and they thanked me for the input and said maybe in the future.

As a longtime music fan and an industry professional, it blows my mind that there are not liner notes with every digital release no matter what the digitial platform.  Whether H1tchr is the solution or not, content providers should be pushing for this in their licensing to the digital distribution platforms.  The creators of music are going unheralded and uncredited.  Potentially dangerous on one level, disingenous on another.

I work for Rovi, the company that owns Allmusic.

Most NAM music services license Allmusic data which includes album credits for literally millions of releases. Allmusic's editors have spent more than two decades doing the hard work to which commenters allude: keying in credits, mapping re-releases and versions to the correct parent record, sorting out similarly named aritsts & albums etc...it is grueling work that requires dozens of passionate music freaks - but we love what we do.

We maintain credits data. We include this data in our basic licensing package i.e. not an upsell. What we cannot control is what our customers do with the data they license from us.  However you - artists, industry professionals, music fans - can do something about it.  Let these services know that their customers want a more immersive editorial experience to go along with the music. Let them know you care - and that the first service to offer this robust experience will get your business. That is one way we can move the needle.

In addition to working for Rovi I am a DJ and record collector. I am with you on this 100%. And I am working with our customers and concerned industry organziations to highlight this issue.

Keep up the good fight and know you have an advocate trying to work this from the inside.

k

I don't think the problem lies with allmusic's data, or even discog's data. The problem is Spotify effectively mapping their own catalog to the data. Whatever service is used, you can't get around the process of manually making a lot of those connections, which is why no one's done it.

What Spotify really ought to do is release a beta plugin or an opt-in beta software with allmusic album data enabled, & some sort of feedback system so that allows users to go in & note all of the anomolies. I would certainly participate.

Also, allmusic deserves big time kudos for the work they do. I've found it to be the most reliable source for music discovery over the years. I've discovered some of my all-time favorite albums through allmusic, albums that weren't covered anywhere else at the time (specifically Devin Davis' Lonely People of the World Unite & Devin Davis' the Moonstation House Band). Wonderful company. My life would be very different without companies like allmusic & spotify.