Yahoo! Music API

The Yahoo! Music API gives developers access to the Yahoo! Music catalog of artists, albums, tracks, videos and more. It provides numerous ways to browse the catalog: through charts, search, similarities, genres, and artists. Adding content to your site becomes simple when using our API and video player.

How Do I Get Started?

YQL makes it easy to use Music data

YQL (Yahoo! Query Language) is an expressive SQL-like language that lets you query, filter, and join data from Yahoo!, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and a variety of other Web services. With YQL, you can read, write, and shape data across the Internet (in both XML and JSON formats) through simple REST requests, eliminating the need to learn how to use different APIs.

1. Explore: Experiment with Music data in the YQL Console to test your queries.
2. Develop: Use the YQL web service to access Music data in your application.

Accessing the Data

Overview

The Yahoo! Music API utilizes the Yahoo! Query Language (YQL) as a mechanism to access Yahoo! Music data, returning data in XML and JSON formats.

The Music Video Player is a Flash-based player that can be embedded easily into your application. It can be customized and translated for multiple languages, provides some basic scripting methods, and generates several playback events your application can handle. Learn more about the Video Player.

Example YQL Queries for Music Data

Return metadata for Artists, Albums, Tracks, Videos, and more:

• select * from music.artist.id where ids='289282'
• select * from music.video.id where ids='36511355'

Most Popular Charts / New Releases / Category Charts:

• select * from music.release.popular select * from music.artist.popular
• select * from music.artist.popular

Search:

• select * from music.artist.search where keyword='Rihanna'

Similarities:

• select * from music.video.similar where id='2158463'

Video Stations:

• select * from music.video.category where id='7318647'

Rate Limits

Currently, this Service is limited to 5000 queries per day per IP address.

Terms of Use

Use of the Yahoo! Music API is governed by the Yahoo! Music API Terms of Use.

Support & Community

The Yahoo! Music API is discussed on the Music API developer forum. Join the conversation there to get help and touch base with other developers interested in the Yahoo! Music API.

Legacy Documentation

Previous versions of the Yahoo! Music API utilized Browser Based Authentication (BBAuth) as a mechanism for users to authorize your application to access their personal Music data, such as ratings, recommendations, and profile information. Only applications that utilize user data require full BBAuth. Documentation for the BBAuth version of the API remain available (including PDF format).