# Possibility to tag by artist "area"? (Artist country of origin)
**URL:** https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808
**Category:** MusicBrainz Picard
**Created:** [August 12, 2022, 5:21am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808 "2022-08-12T05:21:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@zpoison](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/zpoison)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2022, 5:21am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/1 "2022-08-12T05:21:15Z")
Hello, I would want to add a tag that would be very important to me, and I just cannot do it manually to every artists.
Is it possible to add a tag for the “Artist country of origin” ?
I just see the countries of the releases
If yes, can someone explain me how to do it please it would be very appreciated
---
### Author:  [@yindesu](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/yindesu)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2022, 5:31am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/2 "2022-08-12T05:31:21Z")
No, it’s not: [MBS-12170](https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/MBS-12170)
---
### Author:  [@zpoison](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/zpoison)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2022, 5:46am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/3 "2022-08-12T05:46:25Z")
_Disclamer:Yes I know I know nothing about Picard_
Request [MBS-12170](https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/MBS-12170) opened 8 months ago already
**It can put a thousand tags into one song** yet unable to generate a tag by artist area/country, this is insane.
I have found that some talked about making a plugin: No solution from nobody(unable to create a plugin for the solution)?
**Your request is totally exact and to the point.** (Country of release is not only worthless but also cumbersome, I would say nothing if we could use a “artist country of origin” tag)
Country tag = The only essential tag in a already clean collection
A good assortment start with knowing the artists countries, we all know that, in 2022
---
### Author:  [@mfmeulenbelt](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/mfmeulenbelt)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2022, 7:16am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/4 "2022-08-13T07:16:23Z")
This would be really nice to have, but so are a million other things. The amount of developers and their time is limited, so don’t get your hopes up.
---
### Author:  [@Isabelxxx](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/Isabelxxx)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2022, 8:43am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/5 "2022-08-13T08:43:19Z")
Agree. Being realistic, country release is useless for most users… it doesn’t give you any actual info about the music/artist at all.
Artist’s country was one of the big holes I never understood on Picard.
---
### Author:  [@FeloniousMonk13](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/FeloniousMonk13)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2023, 10:38am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/6 "2023-04-25T10:38:03Z")
+1
I would love to see this too. My custom foobar skin puts a little flag next to the artist’s name if I add an “artistcountry” tag to the metadata. I would love to be able to automate that process.
Also, for the record, I think that releasecountry is very helpful too!
---
### Author:  [@boysmithers](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/boysmithers)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2023, 4:20pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/7 "2023-04-27T16:20:07Z")
Ooh, that sounds very cool! I must investigate different Foobar skins…
---
### Author:  [@rdswift](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/rdswift)
#### Post date: [May 10, 2023, 11:12pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/8 "2023-05-10T23:12:44Z")
Part of the issue with providing the country information is that it requires a number of recursive calls to the MusicBrainz api to drill down the information. This can cause significant delays in loading an album from MusicBrainz, especially when there are a large number of album or track artists such as you might find on a [Various Artists] release.
I took this as a challenge, and have created a plugin for Picard that provides detailed artist information in a series of new variables. This is available from my [github repo](https://github.com/rdswift/picard-plugins/tree/2.0_RDS_Plugins/plugins), and if anyone wants to try it out I would appreciate any feedback (especially if you find any bugs).
* * *
# Additional Artists Details [[Download](https://github.com/rdswift/picard-plugins/raw/2.0_RDS_Plugins/plugins/additional_artists_details/additional_artists_details.zip)]
## Overview
This plugin provides specialized album and track variables with artist details such as type, gender, begin and end dates, location (begin, end and current) and country code (begin, end and current) for use in tagging and naming scripts.
_ **NOTE:** _ This plugin makes additional calls to the MusicBrainz website api for the information, which will slow down retrieving album information from MusicBrainz. This will be particularly noticable when there are many different album or track artists, such as on a [Various Artists] release.
* * *
## What it Does
This plugin reads the album and track metadata provided to Picard, extracts the list of associated artists, retrieves the detailed information from the MusicBrainz website, and exposes the information in a number of additional variables for use in Picard scripts.
## Variables Created
- **\_artist\_{artist\_id}\_begin** - The begin date (birth date) of the artist
- **\_artist\_{artist\_id}\_begin\_country** - The begin two-character country code of the artist
- **\_artist\_{artist\_id}\_begin\_location** - The begin location of the artist
- **\_artist\_{artist\_id}\_country** - The two-character country code for the artist
- **\_artist\_{artist\_id}\_disambiguation** - The disambiguation information for the artist
- **\_artist\_{artist\_id}\_end** - The end date (death date) of the artist
- **\_artist\_{artist\_id}\_end\_country** - The end two-character country code of the artist
- **\_artist\_{artist\_id}\_end\_location** - The end location of the artist
- **\_artist\_{artist\_id}\_gender** - The gender of the artist
- **\_artist\_{artist\_id}\_name** - The name of the artist
- **\_artist\_{artist\_id}\_sort\_name** - The sort name of the artist
- **\_artist\_{artist\_id}\_type** - The type of artist (person, group, etc.)
A variable will only be created if the information is returned from MusicBrainz. For example, if a gender has not been specified in the MusicBrainz data then the **%\_artist\_{artist\_id}\_gender%** variable will not be created.
* * *
## Example
If you load the release **Wrecking Ball** (release [8c759d7a-2ade-4201-abc2-a2a7c1a6ad6c](https://musicbrainz.org/release/8c759d7a-2ade-4201-abc2-a2a7c1a6ad6c)) by Sarah Blackwood (artist [af7e5ea9-bd58-4346-8f78-d672e9f297f7](https://musicbrainz.org/artist/af7e5ea9-bd58-4346-8f78-d672e9f297f7)), Jenni Pleau (artist [07fa21a9-c253-4ed0-b711-d63f7965b723](https://musicbrainz.org/artist/07fa21a9-c253-4ed0-b711-d63f7965b723)) & Emily Bones (artist [541d331c-f041-4895-b8f2-7db9e27dc5ab](https://musicbrainz.org/artist/541d331c-f041-4895-b8f2-7db9e27dc5ab)), the following variables will be created:
Sarah Blackwood (primary artist):
- **\_artist\_af7e5ea9\_bd58\_4346\_8f78\_d672e9f297f7\_begin** = “1980-10-18”
- **\_artist\_af7e5ea9\_bd58\_4346\_8f78\_d672e9f297f7\_begin\_country** = “CA”
- **\_artist\_af7e5ea9\_bd58\_4346\_8f78\_d672e9f297f7\_begin\_location** = “Burlington, Ontario, Canada”
- **\_artist\_af7e5ea9\_bd58\_4346\_8f78\_d672e9f297f7\_country** = “CA”
- **\_artist\_af7e5ea9\_bd58\_4346\_8f78\_d672e9f297f7\_disambiguation** = “rockabilly, + “Somebody That I Used to Know””
- **\_artist\_af7e5ea9\_bd58\_4346\_8f78\_d672e9f297f7\_gender** = “Female”
- **\_artist\_af7e5ea9\_bd58\_4346\_8f78\_d672e9f297f7\_location** = “Canada”
- **\_artist\_af7e5ea9\_bd58\_4346\_8f78\_d672e9f297f7\_name** = “Sarah Blackwood”
- **\_artist\_af7e5ea9\_bd58\_4346\_8f78\_d672e9f297f7\_sort\_name** = “Blackwood, Sarah”
- **\_artist\_af7e5ea9\_bd58\_4346\_8f78\_d672e9f297f7\_type** = “Person”
Jenny Pleau (additional artist)
- **\_artist\_07fa21a9\_c253\_4ed0\_b711\_d63f7965b723\_country** = “CA”
- **\_artist\_07fa21a9\_c253\_4ed0\_b711\_d63f7965b723\_gender** = “Female”
- **\_artist\_07fa21a9\_c253\_4ed0\_b711\_d63f7965b723\_location** = “Kitchener, Ontario, Canada”
- **\_artist\_07fa21a9\_c253\_4ed0\_b711\_d63f7965b723\_name** = “Jenni Pleau”
- **\_artist\_07fa21a9\_c253\_4ed0\_b711\_d63f7965b723\_sort\_name** = “Pleau, Jenni”
- **\_artist\_07fa21a9\_c253\_4ed0\_b711\_d63f7965b723\_type** = “Person”
Emily Bones (additional artist)
- **\_artist\_541d331c\_f041\_4895\_b8f2\_7db9e27dc5ab\_gender** = “Female”
- **\_artist\_541d331c\_f041\_4895\_b8f2\_7db9e27dc5ab\_name** = “Emily Bones”
- **\_artist\_541d331c\_f041\_4895\_b8f2\_7db9e27dc5ab\_sort\_name** = “Bones, Emily”
- **\_artist\_541d331c\_f041\_4895\_b8f2\_7db9e27dc5ab\_type** = “Person”
Note that variables will only be created for information that exists for the artist’s record.
This could be used to set a **%country%** tag to the country code of the (primary) album artist with a tagging script like:
```taggerscript
$set(_tmp,_artist_$getmulti(%musicbrainz_albumartistid%,0)_)
$set(country,$if2($get(%_tmp%country),$get(%_tmp%begin_country),$get(%_tmp%end_country),xx))
```
---
### Author:  [@rdswift](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/rdswift)
#### Post date: [May 12, 2023, 10:12pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/9 "2023-05-12T22:12:00Z")
I’ve cleaned up and optimized the plugin a bit. It now provides an option settings panel to allow you to disable processing track artists, which improves the speed immensely if you’re only interested in details for the album artist(s). If you try it out, please let me know if it works for you or if you run into any problems. If there’s enough interest, I will submit it for inclusion in the “official” list of [Picard Plugins](https://picard.musicbrainz.org/plugins/).
---
### Author:  [@strat666](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/strat666)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2023, 12:11pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/10 "2023-09-29T12:11:17Z")
@rdswift : thank you so much for opening the door to tap this valuable information. You’ve made a lot of people happy. Keep up the great work, it is most appreciated.
---
### Author:  [@RickyHunter](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/RickyHunter)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2024, 11:18pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/11 "2024-02-19T23:18:42Z")
While I want to thank you a lot, I don’t get how to use the plugin, so excuse my ignorance. I’m just starting with scripting.
What I want to achieve is to add the Country to an artist folder like this:
Uncrowned, The [Japan]
So I have activated the plugin in the plugin option.
What I’m expecting is to be able to use it in the renaming script, is it correct?
So for instance if I add the code you cite in my script like this:
```auto
$noop(Replace part is to replace ANY : which don`t work in the path names with a hyphen. The actual substitution is at the end of the script)
$replace(
$noop(Let's start organising the Album Root folder: the artist of the album)
$noop(For any album artists such as The Chemical Brothers, change the folder name to say Chemical Brothers, The.)
$swapprefix($if2(%albumartist%,%artist%),A,An,The,Le)
$noop(Then let's add the artist Country)
[$set(_tmp,_artist_$getmulti(%musicbrainz_albumartistid%,0)_)
$set(country,$if2($get(%_tmp%country),$get(%_tmp%begin_country),$get(%_tmp%end_country),xx))]/
$noop(Now let's organise the album folder with date and album title)
$if(%date%,\($left(%date%,4)\) )
$if(%albumartist%,%album%)
$noop(adds bit per sample and sample rate)
[$if(%_bits_per_sample%,%_bits_per_sample%-bit $div(%_sample_rate%,1000) kHz$if(%_source%, %_source%),%_bitrate%kbps)$if(%_source%, %_source%)] [$upper(%_extension%)]
$noop(Adds the catalog number, but if there are any releases that have [none] in the catalog field, then just ignore.)
$if($and(%catalognumber%,$ne(%catalognumber%,[none])), {%catalognumber%})/
$if($gt(%totaldiscs%,1),$if($gt(%totaldiscs%,9),$num(%discnumber%,2),%discnumber%)-,)$if($and(%albumartist%,%tracknumber%),$num(%tracknumber%,2) ,)$if(%_multiartist%,%artist% - ,)%title%
,:,-)
```
The result I’m obtaining is a folder like this:
Uncrowned, The []
So inside the square parenthesis there is no content.
What am I doing wrong here?
Thanks iin advance!
PS: the album I’m trying to rename is this one: [Release “WITNESS” by THE UNCROWNED - MusicBrainz](https://musicbrainz.org/release/b6b3a158-023a-4b4c-849f-7f48e8228065?tport=8000)
---
### Author:  [@rdswift](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/rdswift)
#### Post date: [February 19, 2024, 11:56pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/12 "2024-02-19T23:56:38Z")
> [@RickyHunter](#):
>
> What am I doing wrong here?
I haven’t gone through your script in detail, but it looks like you’re setting the `%country%` tag, but never actually adding it to the output. Try changing that section of your script from:
```taggerscript
$noop(Then let's add the artist Country)
[$set(_tmp,_artist_$getmulti(%musicbrainz_albumartistid%,0)_)
$set(country,$if2($get(%_tmp%country),$get(%_tmp%begin_country),$get(%_tmp%end_country),xx))]/
```
to:
```taggerscript
$noop(Then let's add the artist Country)
$set(_tmp,_artist_$getmulti(%musicbrainz_albumartistid%,0)_)
[$if2($get(%_tmp%country),$get(%_tmp%begin_country),$get(%_tmp%end_country),xx)]/
```
and see if that does the trick.
---
### Author:  [@mfmeulenbelt](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/mfmeulenbelt)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2024, 12:09pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/13 "2024-05-11T12:09:24Z")
Would it be possible to have the plugin return the full language name instead of the language code? I know I can use a script like `$if($eq(%releasecountry%,XE),$set(releasecountry,Europa))`, but doing that for all available countries will result in a huge script (and I’m not sure how I would nest that in the example you give on the GitHub page).
Since this plugin requires additional API calls to MusicBrainz, it would be nice if there were an option to enable/disable each of the new variables, both to speed up getting results and to decrease the load on MusicBrainz’ servers.
---
### Author:  [@outsidecontext](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/outsidecontext)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2024, 12:19pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/14 "2024-05-11T12:19:07Z")
You can use the [`$countryname`](https://picard-docs.musicbrainz.org/en/functions/func_countryname.html) to get the name:
```taggerscript
$countryname(%releasecountry%)
```
Thanks to rdswift, who implemented this for Picard 2.7 🙂
---
### Author:  [@mfmeulenbelt](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/mfmeulenbelt)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2024, 1:03pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/15 "2024-05-11T13:03:43Z")
Thank you. Another question about using this script:
One of the examples on the GitHub page is [Jenni Pleau](https://musicbrainz.org/artist/07fa21a9-c253-4ed0-b711-d63f7965b723), whose area is not a country, but the more specific [Kitchener](https://musicbrainz.org/area/3e4e751b-0838-428f-a44c-ba54b69508f4), [Ontario](https://musicbrainz.org/area/2747553f-b44d-44c4-a7c3-b67412b6f10b), [Canada](https://musicbrainz.org/area/71bbafaa-e825-3e15-8ca9-017dcad1748b), and the script should return `_artist_07fa21a9_c253_4ed0_b711_d63f7965b723_country = "CA"`. So it should extract the country based on the city.
But when I use the script `$set(_tmp,_artist_$getmulti(%musicbrainz_albumartistid%,0)_) $set(artistcountry,$if2($get(%_tmp%country),$get(%_tmp%begin_country),$get(%_tmp%end_country),xx))`
and load the album [The Ocean](https://musicbrainz.org/release-group/5004c302-be08-4501-9307-3e0dd24d42b7) by [Deca](https://musicbrainz.org/artist/ad64d0b0-f6b9-49ec-b7c2-39876bfd28ac), whose area is also set to a city (New York) instead of a country (United States), the plugin doesn’t set `artistcountry` to United States. What is going wrong here?
---
### Author:  [@rdswift](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/rdswift)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2024, 2:12pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/16 "2024-05-11T14:12:17Z")
> [@mfmeulenbelt](#):
>
> What is going wrong here?
I don’t know. I tried your script here and when I load the album the `artistcountry` tag is properly set to “US”. What is it being set to in your test?
---
### Author:  [@mfmeulenbelt](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/mfmeulenbelt)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2024, 2:52pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/17 "2024-05-11T14:52:38Z")
It’s set to “xx”. It gets even weirder, because when I load [Smoking Gun](https://musicbrainz.org/release-group/04ec8868-a61f-4fef-bffc-8e412b9ea758) by the same artist, the country is set to US.
Edit, never mind, because all of a sudden the artist country is loaded correctly. Maybe it was a server-side error? Unfortunately I cleared the debug log before my last try, because I wanted to see what happened when I loaded an album.
---
### Author:  [@rdswift](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/rdswift)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2024, 3:09pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/18 "2024-05-11T15:09:47Z")
> [@mfmeulenbelt](#):
>
> Edit, never mind, because all of a sudden the artist country is loaded correctly. Maybe it was a server-side error? Unfortunately I cleared the debug log before my last try, because I wanted to see what happened when I loaded an album.
A server side error could cause that problem, resulting in the value being set to the default of “xx”. It would be nice if the plugin alerted the user that it encountered a problem so that the user isn’t just left with unexpected results. I’ll take a look when I get a chance, but I’m not sure how (or if) the plugin can access the information required to detect the problem and the best way to report it if it can.
The main thing is that it (now) seems to be working for you. Thanks for the update.
---
### Author:  [@mfmeulenbelt](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/mfmeulenbelt)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2024, 3:28pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/19 "2024-05-11T15:28:06Z")
Could it be when the server limits the number of calls? This happens quite often when I load more than one release at a time. Also, reloading a release makes no difference; I keep getting the non-result until I quit Picard and start it again.
[Here](https://pastebin.com/NDRiGv03) is a Pastebin link with the log of looking up two albums by [µ-Ziq](https://musicbrainz.org/artist/aae5b930-c59c-4509-81a1-4e65e8f424e4): [Lunatic Harness](https://musicbrainz.org/release/b3f50b29-5292-4359-935d-1c6936995a0f) is loaded with the artist country, [Summerset Avenue Tracks](https://musicbrainz.org/release/5de850c6-4276-464a-802b-04bd8effa136) the artist country was not loaded. Maybe this helps?
---
### Author:  [@rdswift](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/rdswift)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2024, 3:55pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808/20 "2024-05-11T15:55:35Z")
> [@mfmeulenbelt](#):
>
> Also, reloading a release makes no difference; I keep getting the non-result until I quit Picard and start it again.
That’s because it is pulling the result from the cache that I implemented in the plugin to reduce the number of api calls. This is confirmed in the log extract you posted (thanks). One thing that I can look at is possibly invalidating the cache and re-querying the api if the country code is “xx”, however this can result in unnecessary extra api calls in the case where there is no area set for the artist. I’ll have to give this some thought.
Another possibility could be to include a button on the option settings page for the plugin to clear the cache and force reloading all of the information. Not exactly user friendly or intuitive, but least that would avoid the user having to restart Picard.
[Next page](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/possibility-to-tag-by-artist-area-artist-country-of-origin/596808.md?page=2)