Discogs

The discogs.com domain name was registered in August 2000,^[7] and Discogs itself was launched in November 2000 by programmer, DJ, and music fan Kevin Lewandowski originally intended to be a large database of electronic music.^[8]

Lewandowski's original goal was to build the most comprehensive database of electronic music, organized around the artists, labels, and releases available in electronic genres. In 2003, the Discogs system was completely rewritten,^[9] and in January 2004 it began to support other genres, starting with hip hop. Since then, it has expanded to include rock and jazz in January 2005 and funk/soul, Latin and reggae in October of the same year. In January 2006, blues and non-music (e.g. comedy records, field recordings, interviews) were added. Classical music started being supported in June 2007, and in September 2007^[10] the "final genres were turned on" – adding support for the Stage & Screen, Brass & Military, Children's, and Folk, World, & Country music genres, allowing capture of virtually every single type of audio recording that has ever been released.

In June 2004, Discogs released a report claiming that it had 15,788 contributors and 260,789 releases.^[11]

In late 2005, the Discogs marketplace was launched.^[12]

In July 2007, a new system for sellers was introduced on the site called Market Price History. It made information available to users who paid for a subscription – though 60 days of information was free – access to the past price items were sold for up to 12 months ago by previous sellers who had sold exactly the same release. At the same time, the US$12 per year charge for advanced subscriptions was abolished, as it was felt that the extra features should be made available to all subscribers now that a different revenue stream had been found from sellers and purchasers. Later that year, all paid access features were discarded and full use of the site became free of charge, allowing all users to view the full 12-month Market Price History of each item.^[2]

Discover more about History related topics

Electronic music

Electronic music

Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means. Pure electronic instruments depended entirely on circuitry-based sound generation, for instance using devices such as an electronic oscillator, theremin, or synthesizer. Electromechanical instruments can have mechanical parts such as strings, hammers, and electric elements including magnetic pickups, power amplifiers and loudspeakers. Such electromechanical devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, electric piano and the electric guitar.

Hip hop music

Hip hop music

Hip hop music or hip-hop music, also known as rap music and formerly known as disco rap, is a genre of popular music that originated in New York City in the 1970s. It consists of stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records, and rhythmic beatboxing. While often used to refer solely to rapping, "hip hop" more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture. The term hip hop music is sometimes used synonymously with the term rap music, though rapping is not a required component of hip hop music; the genre may also incorporate other elements of hip hop culture, including DJing, turntablism, scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks.

Rock music

Rock music

Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States and United Kingdom. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the blues and rhythm and blues genres of African-American music and from country music. Rock also drew strongly from a number of other genres such as electric blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical, and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock has centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar, drums, and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a 44 time signature using a verse–chorus form, but the genre has become extremely diverse. Like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political. Rock was the most popular genre of music in the United States and much of the Western world from the 1950s to the 2010s.

Jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in European harmony and African rhythmic rituals.

Funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the mid-20th century. It de-emphasizes melody and chord progressions and focuses on a strong rhythmic groove of a bassline played by an electric bassist and a drum part played by a percussionist, often at slower tempos than other popular music. Funk typically consists of a complex percussive groove with rhythm instruments playing interlocking grooves that create a "hypnotic" and "danceable" feel. Funk uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths and thirteenths.

Soul music

Soul music

Soul music is a popular music genre that originated in the African American community throughout the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It has its roots in African-American gospel music and rhythm and blues. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening, where U.S. record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax were influential during the Civil Rights Movement. Soul also became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa. It also had a resurgence with artists like Erykah Badu under the genre neo-soul.

Reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first popular song to use the word reggae, effectively naming the genre and introducing it to a global audience. While sometimes used in a broad sense to refer to most types of popular Jamaican dance music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that was strongly influenced by traditional mento as well as American jazz and rhythm and blues, and evolved out of the earlier genres ska and rocksteady. Reggae usually relates news, social gossip, and political commentary. It is instantly recognizable from the counterpoint between the bass and drum downbeat and the offbeat rhythm section. The immediate origins of reggae were in ska and rocksteady; from the latter, reggae took over the use of the bass as a percussion instrument.

Blues

Blues

Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes, usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.

Classical music

Classical music

Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also applies to non-Western art music. Classical music is often characterized by formality and complexity in its musical form and harmonic organization, particularly with the use of polyphony. Since at least the ninth century it has been primarily a written tradition, spawning a sophisticated notational system, as well as accompanying literature in analytical, critical, historiographical, musicological and philosophical practices. A foundational component of Western Culture, classical music is frequently seen from the perspective of individual or groups of composers, whose compositions, personalities and beliefs have fundamentally shaped its history.

Revenue stream

Revenue stream

A revenue stream is a source of revenue of a company, other organization, or regional or national economy.

Discogs publishes information indicating the number of releases, labels, and artists presently in its database,^[4] along with its contributors:^[5]

* Master Release: from 30 April 2009 the function was made available.
† Contributors pages: in mid 2019 these pages were limited to show only the top 5000 users, with the total user count being made private, although the total user count figure was re-added sometime during early 2021 (also the About Us page mentions "More than 592,000..." have contributed the site.)^[18]

Discogs has so far created a further six online databases, for collating information on related topics, although only one, VinylHub, remains in use.

VinylHub

In mid-2014, a side project website called VinylHub^[19] was started for users to add world-wide information about record stores including location, contact details, what type of items they stocked, etc. In August 2020 it was relocated as part of the main Discogs website, under subdomain vinylhub.discogs.com.^[20]

Five other online databases were previously created, however they have since closed.

Filmogs

In late 2014, the company released a new beta website called Filmogs.^[21] Users could add their physical film collections (on VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, LaserDisc, or any other type of physical film release) to the database, and buy and sell film releases in the global marketplace. The site was closed down on 31 August 2020.

Gearogs

Gearogs was launched as a beta in late 2014, at the same time as Filmogs.^[22] The site let users add and track music equipment, including items such as synths, drum machines, sequencers, samplers, audio software, and any other electronic music making equipment. The site was closed down on 31 August 2020.

Bibliogs/Bookogs

At the start of 2015, the company began Bibliogs as another beta project.^[23] Users could submit information about their books, physical or electronic, different versions and editions, and also connect different credits (writers, illustrators, translators, publishers, etc.) to these books. 21,000 books were submitted by the end of 2016. The project was in beta phase until 15 August 2017^[24] when it reached more than 31,000 book titles, was renamed Bookogs following legal issues with the original name, and removed 'Beta state' notice from the main page. The next day the Marketplace Beta feature was presented.^[25] On 8 June 2019, the project reached a total amount of 100,000 books.^[26] The site was closed down on 31 August 2020, counting more than 154,000 books and 345,000 credits.^[27]

Comicogs

Comicogs^[28] launched around the same time as Bookogs, as a means for comic collectors and enthusiasts to catalog their collections and create an archive of comic releases. Similar to Bookogs, users could contribute comics, manga, graphic novels, and strips to the database, along with information on credits, publishers, writers, etc. 18,000 comics were submitted by the start of 2018. The Comicogs marketplace was launched on 23 August 2017,^[29] allowing users to buy and sell comics from across the world. The site was closed down on 3 August 2020.

Posterogs

In September 2017, the company launched Posterogs.^[30] Posterogs was the only Discogs site to launch a database and marketplace simultaneously.^[31] The scope of Posterogs was left broad at the time of launch, with the company opting to let the community define what type of posters, flyers, or similar, should be included in the database. While non-music related items were fully acceptable for inclusion, much of the primary focus seemed to be on music posters, such as gig/tour posters, album promo posters, and promotional flyers (in keeping with Discogs' music theme), though there were also many film posters in the database. As with all other databases, users could save items to their 'Collection' and 'Wantlist', in addition to buying and selling in the marketplace. The site was closed down on 31 August 2020.

In mid-August 2007, Discogs data became publicly accessible via a RESTful, XML-based API and a license that allowed specially attributed use, but did not allow anyone to "alter, transform, or build upon" the data.^[32][33][34] The license has since been changed to a public domain one. Prior to the advent of this license and API, Discogs data was only accessible via the Discogs web site's HTML interface and was intended to be viewed only using web browsers.^[35] The HTML interface remains the only authorized way to modify Discogs data.^[33]

On 7 June 2011, version 2 of the API was released.^[36] Notable in this release was that a license key was no longer required, the default response was changed from XML to JSON, and the 5000 queries per day limit was removed (although a limit of 2000 image lookups per days was introduced).

On 1 November 2011, a major update to version 2 of the API was released.^[37] This new release dropped support for XML, data is always returned in JSON format, however the monthly data dumps of new data are only provided in XML format.

On 1 February 2014, Discogs modified their API so that image requests will now require OAuth authorization, requiring each user of third-party applications to have a Discogs "application ID", with image requests now limited to 1,000 per day. Additionally the Premium API service was dropped.^[38]

On 24 June 2014, Discogs deprecated their XML API in lieu of a JSON-formatted API.^[39]

Discogs also allows full XML downloads of its Release, Artist, and Label data through the data.discogs.com subdomain.

The recommendations API is not publicly available.^[40]

Discover more about API related topics

XML

XML

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. The World Wide Web Consortium's XML 1.0 Specification of 1998 and several other related specifications—all of them free open standards—define XML.

Public domain

Public domain

The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds the exclusive rights, anyone can legally use or reference those works without permission.

HTML

HTML

The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScript.

Web browser

Web browser

A web browser is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on a range of devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. In 2020, an estimated 4.9 billion people have used a browser. The most used browser is Google Chrome, with a 65% global market share on all devices, followed by Safari with 18%.

JSON

JSON

JSON is an open standard file format and data interchange format that uses human-readable text to store and transmit data objects consisting of attribute–value pairs and arrays. It is a common data format with diverse uses in electronic data interchange, including that of web applications with servers.

OAuth

OAuth

OAuth is an open standard for access delegation, commonly used as a way for internet users to grant websites or applications access to their information on other websites but without giving them the passwords. This mechanism is used by companies such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter to permit the users to share information about their accounts with third-party applications or websites.

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The data in Discogs comes from submissions contributed by users who have registered accounts on the site. The system has gone through four major revisions.

Version One (V1)

All incoming submissions were checked for formal and factual correctness by privileged users called "moderators", or "mods" for short, who had been selected by site management. Submissions and edits would not become visible or searchable until they received a single positive vote from a "mod". An even smaller pool of super-moderators called "editors" had the power to vote on proposed edits to artist and label data.

Version Two (V2)

This version introduced the concept of "submission limits" which prevented new users from submitting more than 2–3 releases for moderation. The number of possible submissions by a user increased on a logarithmic scale. The purpose of this was two-fold: 1) it helped keep the submission queue fairly small and manageable for moderators, and 2) it allowed the new user to acclimatise themselves slowly with the many formatting rules and guidelines of submitting to Discogs. Releases required a number of votes to be accepted into the database – initially the number of votes required was from four different moderators but in time the amount was decreased to three and then two.

Version Three (V3)

V3 launched in August 2007. Submission limits were eliminated, allowing each user to submit an unlimited number of updates and new entries. New releases added to the database were explicitly marked as "Unmoderated" with a top banner, and updates to existing items, such as releases, artists, or labels, were not shown (or available to search engines or casual visitors) until they were approved by the moderators.^[41]

Version Four (V4)

This system launched on 10 March 2008. New submissions and edits currently take effect immediately. Any time a new release is added or old release edited, that entry becomes flagged as needing "votes" (initially, "review," but this term caused confusion). A flagged entry is marked as a full yellow bar across a release in the list views and, like version three, a banner on the submission itself – although, initially, this banner was omitted.

Any item can be voted on at any time, even if it is not flagged. Votes consist of a rating of the correctness and completeness of the full set of data for an item (not just the most recent changes), as assessed by users who have been automatically determined, by an undisclosed algorithm, to be experienced and reliable enough to be allowed to cast votes. An item's "average" vote is displayed with the item's data.^[42]

The ranking system has also changed in v4. In v3, rank points were only awarded to submitters when a submission was "Accepted" by moderator votes. While in v4, rank points are now awarded immediately when a submission is made, regardless of the accuracy of the information and what votes it eventually receives, if any.^[43]

Tag editors

• ASMT MP3 Tagger – single release tagger
• foobar2000 – freeware media player and music management software with a plugin
• Helium Music Manager – music management software with a plugin
• Jaikoz – shareware OS X/Windows/Linux spreadsheet-based tag editor
• Kid3 – open-source project, tagger for all common music formats
• Mp3tag – freeware tag editor, batch and spreadsheet interfaces
• OrangeCD Catalog – music management software
• puddletag – a free and open-source tag editor written for PyQt
• taghycardia^[44] – freeware, automated MP3 tagger
• Tagog – Linux audio file tagger
• TagScanner^[45] – freeware tag editor with Discogs, FreeDB, TrackType.org support
• The GodFather – freeware tag editor
• The Tagger – MP3 and AAC formats tag editor for OS X
• TigoTago – spreadsheet-based tag editor

Other

• Album Art Downloader – Discogs cover art downloads
• Discogs Bar – Discogs navigation and search control toolbar for Firefox
• Discogs Enhancer – Discogs extension adding extra functionality to Google Chrome (inc. dark mode)^[46]
• Discographic for Discogs. Client for Apple devices for iOS^[47]
• MP3 Filenamer – online MP3 file name generator, based on Discogs release data
• Stecotec Musikverwaltung Pro – Music database software by stecotec.de^[48]
• Music Collector – Music database software by collectorz.com
• WWW::Discogs – Perl module for interfacing with the Discogs API
• XLD (X Lossless Decoder) – a CD ripper and audio file converter for OS X

Discover more about Discogs-aware metadata software related topics

Foobar2000

Foobar2000

foobar2000 is a freeware audio player for Microsoft Windows, iOS and Android developed by Peter Pawłowski. It has a modular design, which provides user flexibility in configuration and customization. Standard "skin" elements can be individually augmented or replaced with different dials and buttons, as well as visualizers such as waveform, oscilloscope, spectrum, spectrogram (waterfall), peak and smoothed VU meters. foobar2000 offers third-party user interface modifications through a software development kit (SDK).

Freeware

Freeware

Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines freeware unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the freeware it offers. For instance, modification, redistribution by third parties, and reverse engineering are permitted by some publishers but prohibited by others. Unlike with free and open-source software, which are also often distributed free of charge, the source code for freeware is typically not made available. Freeware may be intended to benefit its producer by, for example, encouraging sales of a more capable version, as in the freemium and shareware business models.

Jaikoz

Jaikoz

Jaikoz is a Java program used for editing and mass tagging music file tags.

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows

Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for servers, and Windows IoT for embedded systems. Defunct Windows families include Windows 9x, Windows Mobile, and Windows Phone.

Linux

Linux

Linux is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which includes the kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name "GNU/Linux" to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Kid3

Kid3

Kid3 is an open-source cross-platform audio tag editor for many audio file formats. It supports DSF, MP3, Ogg, FLAC, MPC, MPEG-4 (mp4/m4a/m4b), AAC, Opus, SPX, TrueAudio, APE, WavPack, WMA, WAV, AIFF, tracker modules.

Mp3tag

Mp3tag

Mp3tag is a metadata tag editor that supports many popular audio file formats. It is freeware for Microsoft Windows, while it costs USD $19.99 for Apple macOS in the Mac App Store.

Puddletag

Puddletag

Puddletag is a graphical audio file metadata editor ("tagger") for Unix-like operating systems.

MP3

MP3

MP3 is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Originally defined as the third audio format of the MPEG-1 standard, it was retained and further extended — defining additional bit-rates and support for more audio channels — as the third audio format of the subsequent MPEG-2 standard. A third version, known as MPEG 2.5 — extended to better support lower bit rates — is commonly implemented, but is not a recognized standard.

Advanced Audio Coding

Advanced Audio Coding

Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is an audio coding standard for lossy digital audio compression. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves higher sound quality than MP3 encoders at the same bit rate.

Firefox

Firefox

Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards. In November 2017, Firefox began incorporating new technology under the code name "Quantum" to promote parallelism and a more intuitive user interface. Firefox is available for Windows 7 and later versions, macOS, and Linux. Its unofficial ports are available for various Unix and Unix-like operating systems, including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, illumos, and Solaris Unix. It is also available for Android and iOS. However, as with all other iOS web browsers, the iOS version uses the WebKit layout engine instead of Gecko due to platform requirements. An optimized version is also available on the Amazon Fire TV as one of the two main browsers available with Amazon's Silk Browser.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, and also for Android, where it is the default browser. The browser is also the main component of ChromeOS, where it serves as the platform for web applications.