setlist.fm API

We're proud to announce the first version of the new setlist.fm Application Programming Interface (what's an application programming interface?).

The setlist.fm API has been designed to give you easy access to setlist data in order to build fancy websites and other applications. So there's no need for homegrown scrapers like this one anymore :-). Before starting to use the API, be sure to ...

1. ... understand how setlist.fm works (the FAQ and the Guidelines are a good starting point),
2. ... read the API documentation carefully,
3. ... apply for an API key (link for logged in users only) - if you're no registered user yet, then register first (it's free). You'll need the API key for some of the API's methods and
4. ... place an attribution link to setlist.fm wherever you use data from setlist.fm (as explained in the API terms of service)

If this documentation isn't enough or if you've got other things you'd like to tell us about the API, visit the API Forum.

Note that the setlist.fm API is, according to the API terms of service, only free for non-commercial projects. If you're interested in using the API for commercial purposes, contact us.

Please also note that this first version of the API is a beta version and some methods might be added/removed/changed in the future. As mentioned, just give us your thoughts in the Forum.

rock and roll!

Introducing the new setlist.fm Forum

After working hard on the internals of setlist.fm for some weeks, here's a new visible feature for all of you setlist people: the forum.

If you've got any question how a thing on setlist.fm works or how you should deal with a special case in a setlist or if you just want to share your feelings about a concert, artist or anything - go ahead and post it.

The reason for adding a (some might call it old-school-) forum was simple: comments to a setlist are great, but they just apply to the specific setlist and some interesting discussions might get lost ... no worries anymore, post them to the forum. Or imagine if a person is looking for a setlist that isn't in the database yet, where to post it? The answer is: the forum.

We started with a few categories that might get adapted and enhanced in the course of time. Also, as it is with every feature on the website, we'll improve the forum with new features you'd like to have!

Hope you like it!

P.S.: To post new topics and entries, you'll have to have a free setlist.fm account.

Average Setlists now open to the public

We're happy to announce that our response to our feedback forum's top suggestion is now open to the public: Average setlists. You'll find them in the artist statistics, where you'll find a new row of tabs (see screenshot below) with the first two stats being the (well known) song statistics and the second one the new average setlist.

You're now able to see average setlists based on year or tour. As average setlists of all concerts ever played by an artist generally doesn't yield sensible results, we chose best not to show it at all.

Here's an example: Metallica's average setlist from 1984:


Hope you like it! And again, if you think that some average setlist don't make any sense at all, please leave a comment in the thread in our feedback forum. We'll then tweak the algorithm until the average setlists rock even more :-)

First birthday

On September 22, 2008 setlist.fm went online with its first version, an empty database and a lot of optimism. Now, a year later there are almost 60,000 setlists, 5,000 artists and over 20,000 venues on setlist.fm. So it's time to say thank you to all of you who entered setlists, edited venues, added artists and suggested features. You guys really rock!

After the major update last week, we decided to work some extra hours for a neat little birthday feature that makes searching for setlists even easier: search suggestions!

Have a look at the improved search that gets its suggestions from popular queries of the last weeks!

We also improved the OpenSearch-Plugin, which has been available from the very start but didn't get promoted a lot. Either click the following link to add setlist.fm to your browser's search engines or do it the (slightly) harder way shown below.

It's really worth adding, here's the plugin in action

Have fun ... and don't hesitate to post your birthday wishes in the comments ;-)

New Features on setlist.fm!

Good news, everyone (stolen)! After weeks of hard work we not only changed the server infrastructure but also introduced some new features:

1. Venues

That's by far the biggest change. There was a notable amount of setlists with weird venues. Weird as they were duplicate, lacked of city or country or just contained question marks.

From now on, each venue must be assigned to a city. The user interface changed slightly for this one, but should be as easy as it was before.

It'll take some time though until all previously 'dirty' cities are assigned to a city.

This way we can come up with some new statistics in the future based on club, stadium, city, region or country.

There are now dedicated venue pages listing all setlists of the venue and venues in the same city. E.g. check out

• Madison Square Garden setlists
• Royal Albert Hall setlists

For those interested: we get the cities from the huge geonames.org database and enhance them with cities and towns that are entered manually.

2. A list of covers on artist pages

Previously it was hard to find out who covered who. Now it's easy - get on any artistpage and you'll find a box showing which bands/artists got covered by this artist and which bands/artist sang covers of this artist. E.g.

• The Beatles setlists
• The Velvet Underground setlists

3. Improved search

That's somehow connected with the venues - it's now possible to search for setlists by venue names, cities and countries using the advanced search. Generally all cities and countries are displayed in English, yet it's also possible to search by their name in some foreign languages.

E.g.

• A search for setlists in "Austria" using the German term for Austria: Österreich
• A search for setlists in "Munich" using the Italian term: "Monaco di Baviera"

for some artists and cities, nicknames are also taken into consideration, so e.g. the funny query

• fab four big apple will return all setlists of The Beatles's New York concerts

As a usability improvement, there's also a box for artist results that lead you right to the artist pages, e.g. this query:

• A search for the cult

4. A hidden gem for you loyal blog readers

There's a hidden feature which is currently in beta - so we'd like to get your feedback first before we present it to the broad mass. In response to this suggestion on uservoice, there are now Average setlists for each artist that tell you what songs were played the most on which position. Check out how to see the average setlists and tell us what you think in the post on uservoice.

Hope you all like the new stuff - if you do or if you don't, tell us. Either in a comment to this blogpost, mail us, send us a tweet or direct message, add us as your friend on last.fm, become a fan on facebook or do all at once ;-)

rock on

It's about Michael Jackson today

This will be one of the days that will be remembered in the same way as the day Kennedy got shot, Elvis Presley died or John Lennon was murdered.

The King of Pop is dead but his music will live on forever - there's just nothing more to say.

Maybe you feel like remembering his best days today - here's a setlist from his 1989 Bad tour:

• Michael Jackson Setlist, Los Angeles on January 18, 1989 (more Jacko setlists)

Perhaps you also enjoy this blog post by Douglas Newman who explains the impact of Michael Jackson on his life in a lovely way and also says that "only cynics can claim that Michael Jackson didn't have some kind of impact on their lives"

New stuff all over the site

During the last couple of weeks we dealed with most of your requests on uservoice and are now happy to present to you the new version of setlist.fm! Here in brief what we did:

1. Support Bands and Dealing with Festivals

There were many good suggestions on how to deal with support bands and festivals but most of them either contained having a designated field when editing or a new tag. We wanted to avoid that and did the following: Setlists of the same venue within the same couple of days are now neatly arranged in the new, wider right column. Just have a look at this Kaizer Chiefs setlist to see it in action. Just be sure that the name of the venues match, if you're unsure about the format to use, have a look at the new adapted guidelines. Support bands can also be found there (same venue, same day), see this R.E.M. setlist for an example.

Bonus: we also added a timeline right below the festival/support band/same day and venue feature - showing the concerts before and after the one you're currently looking at

2. Links on setlist page to add setlists more easily

For those rocking people out there who add more than one setlist of the same artist (and probably same tour) there are now two links on the setlist page. One next to the artist name and the other one next to the tour name (if present). Clicking on that will open the "add setlist" page prefilled with artist and tour.

3. Empty setlists

There was a request asking for a list of empty setlists to encourage users to fill them in. We added the possibility in our advanced search to limit your search to setlists with content or without content (non-empty and empty).

4. Statistics on start page

There are now statistics on the start page showing the amount of setlists (with content!), different artists (with at least one setlist) and tours. Already a pretty impressing figure :-)

5. Play the entire setlist

Clicking on the play button next to a song in the setlist used to play only one song and needed another click on the next item to play the next song. Fortunately that's no longer the case! The next song starts automatically after the previous one ended - so re-listen the whole setlist without further ado :-)

6. Bonus: Autocompletion for tour

The tour field now also offers autocompletion - but please be aware that all tours are taken into consideration, not just the tour of the current artist.

Tell us how you like the new stuff by either commenting to this article, by email or if you'd like to suggest new stuff, in our uservoice forum.

rock and roll!