Here’s the list, and here’s the Wikidata query that generated it. It lists bands (not solo artists) with a Discogs link on file, but no MB artist ID. I chose this query because the set isn’t super huge (446 bands right now), and because the Discogs link can help with identification—especially for bands that only have a Wikipedia page in languages that you don’t speak.
Want to help? You don’t need a Wikimedia account. Here’s how to add an MBID:
- Click the link in the “band” column.
- In the new tab that opens, there are links to the artist’s Wikipedia and Discogs pages. Try to find the artist in MusicBrainz.
- If you find the band, copy the MBID from the URI for their artist page.
- In the Wikidata page, click “add statement”.
- Click on the “property” field. Select “MusicBrainz artist ID”.
- Paste the MBID (not the whole URI) into the next field.
- Click “publish”.
To see bands that have neither MBID nor Discogs ID on file, I use this query. I set a limit of 200 results, but as of now there are more than 38,000 bands in Wikidata that have no MBID on file.
10 Likes
Thanks for providing this.
I’ve tried to use the wikidata query service but I still don’t know how to use spaql well enough.
It might be an interesting project to query wikidata for links that they have and we don’t.
Wikidata can have social media accounts and links to other databases so there is probably a lot of information they have that we don’t.
Oh sure, there are so many things that can be done. Have you tried @loujin’s Wikidata-to-MB import script? (I only just learned that there’s also a MB-to-Wikidata bot.)
1 Like
My name starts with J, so I did the listings starting with J.
2 Likes
There is just a little problem with the “instance of” filter:
A band is Q215380, but e.g. a rockband is Q5741069, so it is not included in this list.
1 Like
Oops, you’re right. Do you know of an efficient way to include all subclasses? When I tried the WHERE clause p:P31/ps:P31/wdt:P279* wd:Q215380, the query was too expensive and it timed out.
To be clear, such a query would also not be 100% comprehensive since it doesn’t catch bands that have no “instance of” predicate. We could catch some of those by cross-referencing DBpedia. Maybe then the only bands missing would be those that have no infobox and no band-related Wikipedia categories?
1 Like
No, I didn’t know anything about Wikidata queries before I saw yours here.
It’s still better to execute this query for each category separately than to have no query at all 
I was just a bit confused when I saw, that the Norwegian metal band Virus
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4014731 (as instance of “band” from your query)
has no Wikipedia page linked to the Wikidata item, but I found a Wikipedia Page for it which is linked to
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2090628 (as instance of “rock band”).
So I tried your query with “rock band” and found some artists, which were not included in the other list.
1 Like
Nice find. it is possible to merge duplicates, but for that you need an account (Virus is already merged now).
Also, thanks (to you and everyone else) for adding MBIDs! 
1 Like
Very cool, thanks for this!
I’ve also noted a whole bunch of entries hiding behind Q43229 “Organization”, probably because of a botched batch job
Some more stuff is hiding behind these instances (nowhere near complete):
2 Likes
wdt:P31/wdt:P279* is the standard way to do that, so this query
2 Likes
Just a reminder for editors, who add MBIDs to Wikidata:
Please check carefully, whether the artist is really the same.
Just because only one artist with this name exists in Musicbrainz,
it doesn’t mean necessarily it is the correct one.
(Somebody had linked a Dutch metal band in Wikidata to a Danish metal band
with the same name in Musicbrainz).
3 Likes
Cool, thanks. I updated the queries and stats in the original post. Fortunately, the expanded result sets are only slightly bigger.
2 Likes
I have a modified query to only give me English wikipedia pages.
SELECT ?band ?bandLabel ?Discogs_artist_ID WHERE {
SERVICE wikibase:label { bd:serviceParam wikibase:language "[AUTO_LANGUAGE],en". }
?band wdt:P31/wdt:P279* wd:Q215380.
?band wdt:P1953 ?Discogs_artist_ID.
?article schema:about ?band .
?article schema:isPartOf <https://en.wikipedia.org/>.
FILTER ( !EXISTS { ?band wdt:P434 ?MusicBrainz_artist_ID. })
}
LIMIT 50
2 Likes
I’ve gotten the list of wikidata entries that have a discogs url down to a small list i’ve started to look at other identifiers:
The below are entries that have an isni number and not a musicbrainz id.
The below have a vaif id
5 Likes
You rock, @dns_server! Thanks to you and all the other contributors, more than 300 records from the Discogs list have been updated!
4 Likes
Of course the first one I try there are duplicate wikidata items so it is flagged.
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11968426
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q10279893
If they merge the records the band would have pages in two languages
I got them merged. interesting interface.
FYI:
A lot of Discogs links (~9000) were added recently to Wikidata and appear now in the query result.
Most of them by a bot (Soweego bot) which has severe difficulties with ambiguous names,
so don’t trust them blindly.
7 Likes
Update! Here’s a new version of the list that’s easier to use (thanks to Magnus Manske’s excellent TABernacle tool). With this version, you don’t even have to visit a Wikidata page. There are artist descriptions, Discogs links, and editable fields in the query results page itself.
To add an MBID, double-click the empty cell in the MusicBrainz artist ID column, or click the asterisk (*) that appears on hover. Paste the MBID, then click the green tick mark (or press Enter). To make a correction, hover over the cell and click the pencil icon.
There is just one catch: With this version, you must be logged in. If you have an account on Wikipedia, Wikidata, or any other Wikimedia project, that will work.
7 Likes