How to create a direct weblink to a track?

MusicBrainz
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When you have the MBID of an album (release id), you can have a direct weblink to it by appending the id to https://musicbrainz.org/release/
So if you have the ID of Steely Dan’s ‘Aja’, you can use https://musicbrainz.org/release/02d88d3e-8805-3e99-8fe7-e8708f74427d to lead you straight to that album.

I would like to do the same for tracks.
For example: the song ‘Deacon Blues’ from that album has ID f9fec290-78d8-4c45-afc1-32d46bed6a9b
But if you append that to https://musicbrainz.org/recording/, it will not lead you directly to the song and all it’s details, but it will show you all album releases that contain that recording.

Is there a way to create a direct weblink to the track and it’s details if you have the MusicBrainz Track ID?

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If you right click the track number (e.g., “A3”) and copy the link, you get a Track link (https://musicbrainz.org/track/ + Track MBID): https://musicbrainz.org/track/ce09a80d-1dd3-3736-8c89-2cac8bccfacb
The MBID and URL scheme you’re using is for the Recording entity (ie., a “recording” link) and it does indeed give you all the Recording relationships, you just have to scroll down below all the Release (Track) instances of it.

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3

Thanks for the fast reply.
So it’s only possible to go to the details of a recording (a single track) in relation to a release it has been released on, and you can’t link to it directly ‘in it’s own right’?

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If you want the recording, you can get that link by clicking on it. If you want the track, that’s always in relation to a release, so there’s no other way :slight_smile:

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On the recording page, if you scroll down past the list of releases, you can see all the details of the recording. I suppose an argument could be made that the order of those items should be flipped, with the relationships and related work on top, and the list of releases on the bottom.

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Thanks, I understand.
Releases and Relationships are keywords in the MusicBrainz universe. (and rightfully so)

But this raises another question.
And it perhaps steers my own thread slightly off-topic, but it is closely related to the origin of my question:

Is the whole concept of ‘release’ still the same, and as valid as it was when MusicBrainz started?

In the old days you had physical releases that contained the track(s).
But nowadays you can acquire just one track in a digital form, without ever knowing if it ‘belongs’ to a larger ‘release’, let alone that you would be able to tell what release that would be exactly.
The provider/company/label might not even consider it having a relation to some release.
So if you purchase one single track from a website, MusicBrainz would still insist on connecting it to some release?
Isn’t that debatable these days?

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Well, in general, it still came from somewhere (I imagine if you buy one track off an album on iTunes, it still specifies which album it was in the tags?). I think Picard does allow to tag stuff as if it wasn’t part of an album though.

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I’m not sure. I can imagine record companies offering tracks that are not necessarily connected to an album.
E.g. for classical music, a ‘work’ might be considered by a record label as just being ‘the work’ as an entity in it’s own right, and sold as such.
Completely irrespective of on what records or cd’s it has been released or perhaps will be released.
MusicBrainz would probably currently consider something like that as a ‘single’ release or something?

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Isn’t that simply a standalone recording?

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I’ve always done that by the situation. My experience is mainly with Amazon and Google Play, I’ve never used iTunes.

On each of those services, a track is sold as part of a encompassing entity like an album or single. If someone self publishes a single track, we could consider it a single or a stand-alone recording, depending on how it was presented. On Amazon, even when the release is a single song, it’s still reminiscent of a physical single, because it has cover art and because the URL for the song itself is different from the encompassing single.

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