ListenBrainz API

Base URL

https://api.listenbrainz.org/1

Authentication

No key for public statistics reads. Submitting listens or reading private user data needs a user token from a ListenBrainz account.

Rate limit

Published per response in `X-RateLimit-*` headers. Read them and back off rather than guessing.

Pricing

Free. The dataset is released under open licences by the MetaBrainz Foundation.

CORS

Enabled — callable directly from browser JavaScript

Official docs

Read the docs

Every request below was executed against the live API on 21 Aug 2026, and the response shown is the real body it returned — not an illustration.

curl 'https://api.listenbrainz.org/1/stats/sitewide/artists?count=3'

const res = await fetch("https://api.listenbrainz.org/1/stats/sitewide/artists?count=3");
if (!res.ok) throw new Error(`Request failed: ${res.status}`);
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);

import requests

res = requests.get("https://api.listenbrainz.org/1/stats/sitewide/artists?count=3", timeout=20)
res.raise_for_status()
print(res.json())

{
  "payload": {
    "artists": [
      {
        "artist_mbid": "a74b1b7f-71a5-4011-9441-d0b5e4122711",
        "artist_name": "Radiohead",
        "listen_count": 3137412
      },
      {
        "artist_mbid": "056e4f3e-d505-4dad-8ec1-d04f521cbb56",
        "artist_name": "Daft Punk",
        "listen_count": 2613498
      },
      {
        "artist_mbid": "b10bbbfc-cf9e-42e0-be17-e2c3e1d2600d",
        "artist_name": "The Beatles",
        "listen_count": 2608678
      }
    ],
    "count": 3,
    "from_ts": 1009843200,
    "last_updated": 1785148578,
    "offset": 0,
    "range": "all_time",
    "to_ts": 1785111505,
    "total_artist_count": 10644578
  }
}

payload.artistsarray

Ranked artists, most listened first.

payload.artists[].artist_namestring

Artist name as credited.

payload.artists[].artist_mbidstring

MusicBrainz identifier — the join key into MusicBrainz and Cover Art Archive.

payload.artists[].listen_countinteger

Total listens recorded across all ListenBrainz users in the window.

payload.countinteger

Number of entries in this response, not the total available.

payload.total_artist_countinteger

How many distinct artists exist in the aggregate — the denominator for any percentage you compute.

payload.from_ts / to_tsinteger

Unix timestamps bounding the window. For `all_time` this starts at the project's own beginning, not the beginning of recorded music.

payload.last_updatedinteger

When the aggregate was last recomputed. Statistics are batch jobs, not live counters.

payload.rangestring

Echoes the window you asked for.

payload.offsetinteger

Echoes the offset, for paging.

• Build a listening-trends dashboard from openly licensed data
• Join listen counts onto MusicBrainz metadata by MBID
• Compare an artist's popularity across different time windows
• Give users an open, exportable alternative to proprietary scrobble stats

If ListenBrainz does not fit, these music apis cover similar ground. Every one was called before publishing, and each links to its own reference page with a working curl command and the response it returned.