January 2026 – MetaBrainz Blog

Picard 3 Alpha Release

Today the Picard team is releasing an early alpha version of the long awaited major update to MusicBrainz Picard. Picard 3 has a lot of changes over the previous versions, and this is the first time we make it available for a larger audience to test.

Please be clear that this is an early alpha release. While we have all the major features implemented and we are rather confident in the current code, it is still a development release and it is expected there will be bugs. If you use this, do so with care, backup your files and please report any issues you encounter.

Some of the changes are also backward incompatible, hence we recommend you make a backup of your Picard.ini config file before trying the alpha version. You can do so in Picard’s Options under Advanced > Maintenance.

Below is an overview about the most significant changes and new features.

MusicBrainz Server update, 2026-01-19

Another year starts, and another MusicBrainz update that brings with it small improvements and fixes a bunch of bugs! In addition to a good amount of URL handling improvements, we have found the tables of contents for our documentation which had decided to play hide and seek over the holidays.

Additionally, we have blocked submitting tags that include commas via the API. Tags with commas were never supposed to be supported (commas are generally our tag separator character), and their existence broke in-site tag handling, but the API would until now accept them without complaints. From now on they will be rejected and you will be asked to try again without the commas.

A new release of MusicBrainz Docker is also available that matches this update of MusicBrainz Server. See the release notes for update instructions.

Thanks to helpimnotdrowning, kellnerd, Shreeshanth Shetty and SuperSaltyGamer for having contributed to the code. Thanks to chaban, helpimnotdrowning, HibiscusKazeneko, ivoireshi, jesus2099, kellnerd, SuperSaltyGamer, wileyfoxyx and yomo12 for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to -alex., Besnik, KenParker_CN, NorwayFun, Philipp Wolfer, dumbbird, gaahmua, imgradeone, liilliil, salo.rock, wileyfoxyx and yyb987 for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2026-01-19.0.

Year in Music 2025 – new and improved!

#YearinMusic 2025 is out now!

A bit like Spotify’s Wrapped (but way super better, in my extremely biased opinion) your ListenBrainz Year in Music report summarizes your listening habits from throughout the year 2025… and now, back through time!

Read more after the jump, or just check it for real real by clicking here to see your report or here if you don’t have an account.