Improved Song Pages on AllMusic

Archival Post from 2017:

One of the things that has always been a challenge when dealing with a database of tens of millions of tracks is the best way to present that information.

In the past we've been displaying "Track-based" information (a Track being defined as an instance of a song as recorded and indexed on each individual recorded release). The track "Wonderwall" as written by Noel Gallagher and performed by Oasis released as the third track on (What's the Story) Morning Glory CD in 1995, and a separate instance of the track "Wonderwall" as written by Noel Gallagher and performed by Oasis released as the third track on (What's the Story) Morning Glory LP in 2014, and another track listing "Wonderwall" as written by Noel Gallagher and performed by Oasis released as the second track on disc 2 of the Now That's What I Call Music 34! CD in 1996. These are all considered to be individual "tracks" in our way of cataloging music. Even though each of those performances and recordings are identical, they were kept in different silos and grouped together loosely on the site.

For the past several months, we've been working on creating what we call "Song" entities (the text of the track title combined with the name(s) of the songwriters) and what we call "Performance" entities (grouping together instances of the "Song" when performed by the same artist). This is all based on the data that we have available to us, so it is a system in progress. We keep finding outliers and inconsistencies that need to be merged and cleaned up, but we're happy with the results so far.

This allows us to do some pretty fun things:

Overview:

The overview tab looks similar to what has existed on the AllMusic song page. The composer(s), a song review (where available), appearances of the performance on different albums.

 


Variations:

Here we've pulled out different versions of the same song by that artist. Live versions, remixes, edits, alternate versions, outtakes, re-recordings and a handful of other types are identified and highlighted in this area. 

 


Also Performed By:

This tab contains other performances of that same song, and the number of times those performances appear on different albums. This can be thought of as "Cover" versions of the song (the "Song" being the track text + songwriters).

 


Attributes:

For years we've wanted to give the music fans the ability to profile and categorize their favorite songs. Adding appropriate genres, styles, moods and themes to whichever song they'd like. Simply click where it says "Add Styles" in the left sidebar of any song page. If a song has no attributes it'll say "We currently don't have any genres associated with this song. Would you like to contribute?" 

 


Through this interface users can tag a genre, up two three styles, up to three moods, and up to three themes on each performance. The most popular attributes for each are listed in order of the number of times they've been assigned. Users can pick from this list of previously-assigned descriptors, or select new ones from the category trees (or by typing in the filter area) on the left. 

 

None of this was possible before we had the concept of a Song entity and a Performance entity but now we can capture this data at the base level. Once we have more information from the music fans of the world about the sound and feel of these songs, we'll be working on building new cool lists ranking and categorizing songs for different moods, activities, and whatever else we can come up with.

Again, our method of combining tracks together to determine "Songs" and "Performances" is all based on the data that we have available to us, so it is a system in progress. We keep finding outliers and inconsistencies that need to be merged and cleaned up, but we're happy with the results so far. Let us know what you think.