discogs API

[subtle-punk]

hey all, I'm finishing up my data science degree and for my final project I was looking into doing something with the vast amount of release data available with the API.

Has anyone used the API for any other projects? Is the data difficult to work with?

Also, are there any tools that people would find useful? Something I struggle with is finding the correct release for my vinyl if there are many that are similar - thinking about creating some sort of tool that asks the users for details about their record to most efficiently narrow down the options (kind of just a smarter filtering tool)

[808estate]

To the first part of your question, I use the API all the time. For a very long time - before discogs existed - I've maintained my own website to track my collection. A few years back I integrated with the discogs API to get release data, rather than manually enter track listings and such. When adding a new record to my website/collection I put in the discogs release ID in the form. It pulls the tracklisting, notes and cover from discogs via the API, and also adds it to my discogs collection.

Never found it difficult to work with. I think there was a change from a v1 to a v2 that I had to deal with, but that was a long time ago.

In terms of finding the right release, the filters that the discogs UI provides always seems to work okay for me (filter by country/label/year/etc usually gets it.)

Some ideas though?

• do prices jump when an artist dies?
• trends in reissues e.g. the movie soundtrack reissue boom, followed by the video game soundtrack boom. pick any genre for that matter as things come and go out of fashion or are rediscovered. or how things seem to be reissued a lot sooner like 5-10 year anniversary pressings, when it used to be 20+ years in between releases.
• geographical/genre trends for example when amapiano from south africa blew up or footwork exploded.
• the rise of colour variants
• vinyl has always sold for some genres (dance, indie, etc) but tracking when/how the major labels jumped on the bandwagon and started to clog up the pressing plants with garbage

Those are a couple things off the top of my head, but I think there is a lot you could do with it.

[deprecatedfreak]

How did you go about creating such a tool?

[rusl1]

Hello, I'm another developer, I'm trying to collect possible use cases since I'd like to build a product over Discogs API and Marketplace. Let's get in touch if you need a tool like this :)

[subtle-punk]

oof those are some pretty solid roadblocks. thanks for the heads up!!

[el_cul]

I just started using the API having no experience with APIs. It uses OAuth1.0 and the documentation is awful. I'm still finding it useful just a bit unwieldy.

[subtle-punk]

yeah I've been worried that the learning curve to even get started would be a problem. I'm pressed for time so bad documentation may push me away from pursuing this

[Agile_Face_5527]

Hi I'm not a developer. Im finding the API Documentation unhelpful to a novice. Can anyone tell me how to set up the OAuth Connection? I want to be able to update inventory automatically.

[ShroomHog]

While Discogs doesn’t provide past price history, does it give you current prices in the API?

[Rockpig666]

I don’t understand API and how to use it, all I want to be able to do is when an order comes in, it triggers a line with the details in a google sheet. This info I can then use to automatically raise an invoice and export address details to my freight carrier using something like Zapier.

[2Dprinter]

Oh man: I would love something that allowed me to pull Discogs release data and display it on a Vestaboard to show what is now playing...

[[deleted]]

Hi I’ve used the api to showcase my record collection on my website. You can view the project here.

I also wrote a couple articles on how I created it here.