Basics
Global Music Data offers a normalized dataset, with standardized IDs and advanced descriptors. Digital media companies can take advantage of this normalized dataset to improve display, search, navigation, discovery, clean presentation of music information and overall organization of music catalogs.
Gracenote GMD Viewer
Gracenote provides a GMD Viewer you can use to explore a subset of the GMD data set. The viewer is a good example of working with GMD data, including filtering and navigating.
To use the viewer, go to: https://gmd.gracenote.com
You will be prompted to log in using your Gracenote credentials.
Data Delivery Format
GMD Export delivers data as JSON files. We recommend downloading and processing these files weekly to keep your dataset up to date. For additiobak information, see Processing Batch Files.
Object Summary
GMD delivers music data through the objects below. To view the relationships among these objects, see the Data Model:
- Artist: A recording artist with a unique identity and billing.
- Album Edition: Specific versions of an Album Master released by an Artist.
- Album Master: Core set of one or more Recordings released under a specific core release title. Album Master is a core set of one or more Recordings released under a specific core release title.
- Recording: A grouping of acoustically nearly identical tracks by the same Artist.
- Song: Song links different tracks of the same composition performed by the same Artist to a single Song ID. This can include studio recordings, live performances, remixes, and so on.
Descriptors
Gracenote also provides Descriptors for both Artists and Recordings. You can use these as seeds to power search, navigation, radio, playlisting, recommendations, personalization and other features. There are six main descriptor types: Genre, Origin, Era, Artist Type, Sonic Mood, and Perceived Tempo. Each descriptor value in the export is assigned a weight on a scale from 0 to 100. The weight of each descriptor’s value signifies its relevance to the Artist or Recording. The Genre descriptor is also available at the Album-Level. Gracenote also provides a Correlates file with numerical associations between descriptors. These support computing Artist and Recording similarity. See Descriptors for additional information.
Associations
There are several association types available for Artists:
- Alternate Names
- Collaborations: Collaborations associations can help improve search and discovery.
- Disambiguation: Use the Artist Disambiguation field to clearly display different artists with identical names (uses editorial Genre and Origin data to easily display disambiguation).
- Key Artist: Link together Artist ID ensemble variations that are all lead by a single ensemble leader.
- Members: Members associations can help improve search and discovery.
- Name Variants: Associations between Artists and their Alternate Names and Name Variants help improve search.
- Similar Artists: Similar Artist can be leveraged to enhance many discovery use cases including enabling of world-class seed-based internet radio stations.
For additional information, see Artist Associations.
Artist Normalization
Artist normalization associates the right content with the right artist:
- Disambiguation differentiates multiple artist entries with the same name.
- Single Entity when an artist has multiple names or to address artist fragmentation.
- Collaborations links between artists and their collaborations.
Album Master and Editions
Album masters are the main version of an album. Editions are different versions of that same album with different track configurations. In the graphic below, you see one master album, and two editions.
Normalized Recordings and Songs
Normalized recordings links all albums that contain the identical recording. This enables clean, canonical recording discographies.
Song identifies different recordings of the same composition by the same artist.
Example: Recordings normalized into a song.
Example Song
Cross-Media Linking
Cross-Media Linking enables search and discovery of music artists across digital media catalogs, including linear TV, movies, and VOD, providing information beyond the album data. You can discover what TV, movies, and artists are going to appear or have appeared in the past.
Linking to Music Services
Using GMD, you can link to various global music services, such as Deezer, Spotify, and Apple Music.