Music on Rails

Napster has a webservice that seems to be unpublished, but it is used in their website to get information on artists, albums and tracks. This is what I have discovered about the API which I use for Song-list.net.

I’ll detail the query language and not the results as they are in XML and self documenting. The data provided is quite rich.

• Artist: http://www.napster.com/searchXML/artist/herbie hancock
• Album: http://www.napster.com/searchXML/album/road escondido
• Track: http://www.napster.com/searchXML/track/beautiful love

Artists, albums and tracks all have 8 digit IDs that can be used to query the particular item.

• Basic information by ID:
• http://www.napster.com/searchXML/artist/10429542
• http://www.napster.com/searchXML/album/10499404
• http://www.napster.com/searchXML/track/10063400

• All albums or tracks by Herbie Hancock:
• http://www.napster.com/searchXML/artist/10429542/albums
• http://www.napster.com/searchXML/artist/10429542/tracks

• All tracks on “Thriller”:
• http://www.napster.com/searchXML/album/10499404/tracks

You can use the the informatin gathered to play the music through a browser:

• http://www.napster.com/player/tracks/10063400

Let me know if you discover more features.