Online music service integration - how to test

[d6jg]

Observation No 1

Spotify Playlists played from My Music / Playlists frequently include an extra zero length track.
When played from My Apps / Spotify / Playlists there is no extraneous track

This anomaly does not affect play. The zero track is just skipped.

Material


IPeng



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This behaviour applies to some Spotify playlists only. I am as yet unable to identify any oddity with the ones that seem to have extraneous tracks.

@michael
I can examine the database for clues
Also do you want this sort of feedback here or on the other thread? Or direct as issue in your github?

[mherger]

> This behaviour applies to some Spotify playlists only. I am as yet

Could you share one with me?

> I can examine the database for clues

The playlist tracks are not stored in the database.

--

Michael

[d6jg]

> This behaviour applies to some Spotify playlists only. I am as yet

Could you share one with me?

> I can examine the database for clues

The playlist tracks are not stored in the database.

--

Michael

This is direct from Spotify app
I said it had no effect on playback but it does hiccup the Now Playing display by one track each time there is a zero track.

Unproven theory. The original playlist may have been longer but had tracks deleted from it by its author.

https://open.spotify.com/user/waghor...Q5mjH-ppycSdjA

[mherger]

Oh, that playlist has "local tracks" in it: the greater did integrate his local mp3 with the Spotify app. These tracks obviously can't be played. Don't know why they're not filtered out during import. Will look into this. Thanks!

[d6jg]

Observation No 2 - Track Artists or Album Artists

This is going to be difficult to explain but I think that the integration is reading Track Artists into the Artist database rather than Album Artists (if either thing exists in Spotify). The consequences of this are subtle.

I will give an example.

In my Spotify library I have 2 albums by the rap artist Zdot (don't ask) - Ambition v2 and Intrumental World.

Both are "indexed" in Spotify under Zdot from an Artist point of view.

However in the case of Ambition v2 each track bar one is by Zdot featuring XXXX. It is NOT a compilation album.

When imported into LMS all (track) artists appear in my Library - should they? I would argue no it should only be Zdot himself.

The consequences are

1) The Artist list is bloated by the numerous Zdot featuring XXXX entries.
2) It is impossible to select the whole of Ambition v2 to play from an artist entry. The only way of playing the whole album is via Albums. This applies to Default, Material & iPeng.

If there is such a thing as Album Artist in Spotify then I think that the database entries need that instead of Track Artist.

Here are Spotify links so you can import and see what I mean

Ambition v2 - https://open.spotify.com/album/0uvxsuUa9lehp7l8S7UbtC
Instrumental World - https://open.spotify.com/album/3DegoFcYGR85V8ookNCmRw

Ambition v2 isn't very good but Instrumental World is quite well worth a listen as it isn't rap at all as it is an Instrumental album that could be classified as Jazz Electronica. All tracks in Instrumental World are credited to Zdot only so that appears correctly.

[mherger]

If there is such a thing as Album Artist in Spotify then I think that the database entries need that instead of Track Artist.

What you're basically saying is that I should ignore track artists, and only use album artists? The data I receive for the first case is the following (and more):

{
  "album_type" : "album",
  "artists" : [ {
    "id" : "3Vg8iAEbLFGTO3ZqPtlIsN",
    "name" : "Zdot",
    "type" : "artist",
  } ],
  "name" : "Ambition V2",
  "popularity" : 0,
  "tracks" : {
    "items" : [ {
      "artists" : [ {
        "id" : "3a0hSEEqSIurl5oGGDFcCF",
        "name" : "Zdot feat. Wiley",
        "type" : "artist",
      }, {
        "id" : "3Vg8iAEbLFGTO3ZqPtlIsN",
        "name" : "Zdot",
        "type" : "artist",
      }, {
        "id" : "7k9T7lZlHjRAM1bb0r9Rm3",
        "name" : "Wiley",
        "type" : "artist",
      } ],
      "id" : "2YB2Qz3K72TD0wiKCfIUmW",
      "name" : "BMO Field",
      "track_number" : 1,
      "type" : "track",
    }, {

As you can see there's an artist at the album level, and there are two at the track level. That's what I'm importing to LMS: ALBUMARTIST for the first one, and TRACKARTIST for the latter. Should I only use the artist at the album level?

(Oh, and I like the popularity!)

[Paul Webster]

"items" : [ {
      "artists" : [ {
        "id" : "3a0hSEEqSIurl5oGGDFcCF",
        "name" : "Zdot feat. Wiley",
        "type" : "artist",
      }, {
        "id" : "3Vg8iAEbLFGTO3ZqPtlIsN",
        "name" : "Zdot",
        "type" : "artist",
      }, {
        "id" : "7k9T7lZlHjRAM1bb0r9Rm3",
        "name" : "Wiley",
        "type" : "artist",
      } ],

How about some horrible string parsing ... e.g. if artistn.name (n always 1?) can be constructed from the others by putting a single word between them (like "feat.", "and", "&" "with") then ignore that artist.

[d6jg]

What you're basically saying is that I should ignore track artists, and only use album artists? The data I receive for the first case is the following (and more):

{
  "album_type" : "album",
  "artists" : [ {
    "id" : "3Vg8iAEbLFGTO3ZqPtlIsN",
    "name" : "Zdot",
    "type" : "artist",
  } ],
  "name" : "Ambition V2",
  "popularity" : 0,
  "tracks" : {
    "items" : [ {
      "artists" : [ {
        "id" : "3a0hSEEqSIurl5oGGDFcCF",
        "name" : "Zdot feat. Wiley",
        "type" : "artist",
      }, {
        "id" : "3Vg8iAEbLFGTO3ZqPtlIsN",
        "name" : "Zdot",
        "type" : "artist",
      }, {
        "id" : "7k9T7lZlHjRAM1bb0r9Rm3",
        "name" : "Wiley",
        "type" : "artist",
      } ],
      "id" : "2YB2Qz3K72TD0wiKCfIUmW",
      "name" : "BMO Field",
      "track_number" : 1,
      "type" : "track",
    }, {

As you can see there's an artist at the album level, and there are two at the track level. That's what I'm importing to LMS: ALBUMARTIST for the first one, and TRACKARTIST for the latter. Should I only use the artist at the album level?

(Oh, and I like the popularity!)

Yes. In the case of this sort of album I think only the artist at album level. That will keep the artist list tidy (and artist images) and make it possible to play the album in full from both artist and album listings.

We need to consider Various Artist compilations though? I suspect the general consensus would be to bring them in as VA but I have none in my Spotify library - I suppose I could add one and find out what happens.

[d6jg]

"items" : [ {
      "artists" : [ {
        "id" : "3a0hSEEqSIurl5oGGDFcCF",
        "name" : "Zdot feat. Wiley",
        "type" : "artist",
      }, {
        "id" : "3Vg8iAEbLFGTO3ZqPtlIsN",
        "name" : "Zdot",
        "type" : "artist",
      }, {
        "id" : "7k9T7lZlHjRAM1bb0r9Rm3",
        "name" : "Wiley",
        "type" : "artist",
      } ],

How about some horrible string parsing ... e.g. if artistn.name (n always 1?) can be constructed from the others by putting a single word between them (like "feat.", "and", "&" "with") then ignore that artist.

Asking for trouble methinks

[mherger]

> Yes. In the case of this sort of album I think only the artist at album
> level. That will keep the artist list tidy (and artist images) and make
> it possible to play the album in full from both artist and album
> listings.

Ok, I'll look into this.

> We need to consider Various Artist compilations though? I suspect the
> general consensus would be to bring them in as VA but I have none in my
> Spotify library - I suppose I could add one and find out what happens.

This will heavily depend on what the music service provides. I don't
think Spotify has a compilation flag of any kind. There's "album_type":
"compilation", but I've seen odd "album_type" definitions before. I can
certainly give it a try.

--

Michael