MusicBrainz Server update, 2025-01-27

This release includes, among the usual small bug fixes and improvements, two small changes worth mentioning specifically.

The first is an improvement that has been requested often: it is now possible to filter all versions of an artist’s index page. That means non-official and various artists release groups can be filtered using the same tools previously available for the standard official groups view. Enjoy, live bootleg lovers!

The second is that account administrators can now immediately accept or reject any edit (even ones that cannot normally be approved). This is an anti-vandalism measure, and the plan is to use it only in cases where spam and vandalism should be removed as soon as possible, rather than waiting for a specific number of days and/or votes. When used, a new type of vote “Admin approval” / “Admin rejection” will be indicated on the edit votes list.

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 Aszazin, chaban, Griomo, MonkeyPython, otringal, phantomenlister, UltimateRiff and wileyfoxyx for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to Besnik, guardiansock, KenParker_CN, Peter69, poromies00, salo.rock and Vaclovas Intas for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2025-01-27.0.

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MusicBrainz Server update, 2025-01-13

Welcome to the first release of 2025! This includes a lot of small improvements and fixes, and one larger change: using primary aliases for more entities and in more places.

Primary aliases for all entities except instruments (which can be translated directly) will be displayed after the entity name when they exist, just like a disambiguation comment. This extends the existing feature for artists written by derat a few months ago (thanks derat!). If you find some places where the aliases should be displayed, but aren’t, please let us know with a ticket!.

Keep in mind aliases will only be shown if they are marked as primary for the language you are browsing MusicBrainz in (you won’t see English aliases if browsing in French, for example). If you see an entity is missing an alias in your language that would help people more easily understand what it is, add it!

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 derat and dvirtz for having contributed to the code. Thanks to Aszazin, chaban, derat, dvirtz, Freso, HibiscusKazeneko, Lotheric, Raman Sinclair, sammyrayy, ThunderMite42, Vac31. and vaibhav for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to Besnik, chaban, Crowbardoctor, dirt3009, guardiansock, imgradeone, liilliil, Peter69, poromies00, salo.rock and wileyfoxyx for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2025-01-13.0.

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Explore Your Year in Music 2024

ListenBrainz is back with your #yearinmusic (YIM) reports for 2024!

Log in to ListenBrainz (LB) and click here to see your report, or here if you don’t have an account and want to see what the fuss is all about.

Missed out and want a YIM? Sign up for a ListenBrainz account, connect your services or your player, and get listening. We’ll have you sorted for 2025. If you are a last.fm user with existing listens you’re in luck – connect your last.fm account to ListenBrainz now, which will also import your listening history, and we will (re)generate you a 2024 YIM in a couple of weeks time.

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ListenBrainz donor flairs

We’re shaking with excitement! Flipping with energy! Anaglyphing with… something. These are just some of the username effects (flair) you can now show off if you are a ListenBrainz donor:

Static effects, animations and mouseover animations, all are unlocked for a month when you donate $5. Paying more will stack further months of flair.

Check out the different effects in your settings page, and then head to the donation page to unlock them and help us pay for our server costs and keep all that lovely data flowing. If you can’t afford this cost, don’t worry! Your presence is always enough. Thank you for being part of this project and this community.

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MusicBrainz Server update, 2024-12-09

This release includes only small changes and features, including a fix for a regression in the new email system (thanks Jade for the continued work on this).

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 Jade Ellis and Suvid Singhal for having contributed to the code. Thanks to chaban, Lotheric, outsidecontext and practik for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to KenParker_CN, Peter69, salo.rock, Vaclovas Intas, wileyfoxyx and yyb987 for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2024-12-09.0.

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New! Syndication Feeds in ListenBrainz

Some days everything comes together, and this is one of those days. We now have a range of Syndication Feeds (aka RSS or Atom feeds) available in ListenBrainz.

Look for the feed symbol in the following places in ListenBrainz:

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Pissed off by Spotify Enshittifying more API endpoints? We can help!

Today Spotify announced that a number of APIs will no longer be available for new users

While Spotify won’t immediately take away these endpoints for existing users, it certainly does not inspire confidence for their longevity. Spotify cites “security reasons” as an explanation of why they are closing off these APIs, but we are unclear as to how that will improve security, so we need to assume that Spotify has some other motivations behind this move. More likely than not, they are hatching a strategy to protect their algorithmic assets from data crawlers used by third-party AI companies. 

Needless to say, the Spotify services continue to get enshittified, taking away very useful features that developers have come to rely on. ListenBrainz has very different goals, being entirely open-source and part of a non-profit foundation, and we won’t pull the rug out from under our users for monetary or “security” reasons.

On the contrary, our very small team works in direct collaboration with users and developers interested in developing new discovery tools in the music space, and we embrace the variety of ways passionate music lovers want to interact with music collections and recommendations.


Our own frustrations with Spotify’s ever-worsening recommendations was the spark that lit up our interest in recommendations, but again our approach is one of fairness (we don’t tip the scales) focused on the user’s experience rather than the deep pockets of multinational labels.

For developers frustrated that their app stopped working, the good news is that the ListenBrainz team has been working on building some new datasets and API endpoints that offer replacements for what Spotify is taking away. While not everything that Spotify is enshittifying has a direct replacement with ListenBrainz, we can at least offer a path forward for developers.

 These features/datasets include:

Future new datasets include:

  • Track similarity
  • Album similarity
  • Your dream feature here

All of this data is Creative Commons CC0 licensed (read Public Domain) and available on our API endpoints, for free, forever. MetaBrainz is a California 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to creating, maintaining and ensuring that these datasets are available for public use. 

And on top of that, the person who coined the term “Enshittification”, Cory Doctorow, has been on our board of directors for 20 years, further ensuring that we’re enshittification proof.

Come play with our data – we’d love your feedback! We’re working hard to make this data better and if it doesn’t yet meet your needs, we hope to meet them soon!

* for the similar artist search, use this value for “algorithm”: session_based_days_7500_session_300_contribution_5_threshold_10_limit_100_filter_True_skip_30

X-odus: Find our projects on Bluesky and Mastodon

We have now completely moved off X (the platform formerly known as Twitter). It has been a long time coming, with rampant enshittification, uncertainty around platform changes, and content that has been increasingly unpleasant to interact with. Politics aside, we’re sick of going to check notifications and getting blasted with a feed largely consisting of violence, porn, advertising, the owner, and AI grifters*.

Instead, come join MetaBrainz, MusicBrainz, ListenBrainz and BookBrainz on Bluesky and/or Mastodon!

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MusicBrainz Server update, 2024-11-18

Image editing has been re-enabled after being down for the past month, so it’s now time to upload your backlog of scanned artwork if you haven’t already done so on the beta site! The rest of the changelog is short, but we’ll give a special mention to JadedBlueEyes, whose GSoC project is now being used for sending emails between editors. You’ll notice that a newer, fancier email template is now used for such messages. We hope to convert the rest of the emails we send out to use the new service soon, in future server releases.

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 derat and JadedBlueEyes for having contributed to the code. Thanks to Xythium, jlks82, and roman412 for having reported bugs and suggested improvements. Thanks to ApeKattQuest/MonkeyPython, KenParker_CN, and yyb987 for updating the translations. And thanks to all others who tested the beta version!

The git tag is v-2024-11-18.0.

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Welcome Julian45 (and atj)!

I’m pleased to announce that Julian Anderson (julian45) and Adam James (atj) have joined our team as volunteer System Administrators. Julian has just now joined the team, where as Adam has been part of it for nearly 2 years and I failed to post the requisite blog post welcoming him. Mea culpa, Adam! Welcome to both of you!

We welcome volunteers to help us with our infrastructure, which continues to grow and become more complicated. The ListenBrainz project in particular has many moving parts in order to process the user’s data (stats, recommendations, fresh releases, etc.). On top of that, we’re working hard to make sure that our infrastructure is as automated as possible, so we welcome any help from people who know Ansible, like Julian and Adam.

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