Music artists page ideas

[electricwildflower 17]

I love the individual artists pages for bands but there is a number of things lacking that i believe would be a welcome to the artists pages and give it much more content if it could be done, that's if i ain't missing anything that i can already do or activate via settings or anything.

We currently have

Songs
Albums
Appears on
Music videos
More like this

How about the following

Members - Shows you individual photos of past & present members kind like the cast a crew section of movies but let's me know who the vocalist, drummer, bassist is and who is a past member

Videos - I'm talking movies based upon an artist, promo video compilations, documentaries, live gigs and other types of dvd's, bluerays and videos, how about a section like Music Videos that shows any music dvd's you happen to have in your library that features the said artist. 

Photos - How about being able to show photos of artists if you have any, a number of bands i do have a few photos and whilst i do have a media library specifically for home video and photos it would be cool to visit a bands page and see a scroll able left and right gallery of photos depending on how many you have.

Yes i can search for an artist and it brings up a few options like top results, albums, artists, people, photos, movies and so on but having it on the artist page would be good if it wouldn't be too cluttered and could work?

Just a few ideas mind  

 

 

[Luke 42077]

HI, yes these are all good ideas, if we can get that information. Thanks for the feedback.

[electricwildflower 17]

The TMDB has profiles for different people ranging from artists, actors, actresses and so fourth and gives you a run down of what their featured in with the order of date and checking David Bowie he does had a lot of videos ranging from movies, one off TV appearances, documentaries, live gigs and so fourth so maybe that could be used to get the info for the videos..

In terms of pulling information for band members, Discogs has credits for artists albums which tells you who produced the album, who did drums, vocals, guitar and so fourth if that would help to pull the info somehow.

I would certainly welcome a videos section that i could see all of my dvd rips for a said artist especially like Bowie which i have a large number of them mostly documentaries and a wealth of live videos but when a family member or friend visits an artist page it would be cool for them to see if i have any videos other than the usual promo videos. 

Being a passionate music lover i am sure i will think of plenty more ideas for the artist pages.

Cheers

[user24 313]

On 5/23/2021 at 10:41 PM, electricwildflower said:

I love the individual artists pages for bands but there is a number of things lacking that i believe would be a welcome to the artists pages and give it much more content if it could be done, that's if i ain't missing anything that i can already do or activate via settings or anything.
How about the following
Members - Shows you individual photos of past & present members kind like the cast a crew section of movies but let's me know who the vocalist, drummer, bassist is and who is a past member

The Album Artist pages are also my favourite Emby Music pages and adding a "Members" section similar to "Cast & Crew" for Movies would potentially take Emby Music Libraries to another whole level of functionality.

My thoughts are that a "Related Artists" section with direct internal cross-linking (where possible) to the relevant existing "Related Artist" pages would be a great way to browse across a large music library.

Music bands could show the band members and individual artists could show the bands they have been in, e.g.:

The Beatles Related Artists: George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul, McCartney, Ringo Starr.

George Harrison Related Artists: Delaney & Bonnie, The Beatles, The Traveling Wilburys.

This information is available in MusicBrainz directly under the Relationships tab so could potentially be auto-populated by Emby.

 

If this was a step too far for Emby to implement, then at least having a "Related Artists" section that could have user manually entered info and internal links would be a very good step in the right direction. When browsing it would be a fun journey to go through (e.g.): The Beatles - George Harrison - The Traveling Wilburys - Jeff Lynne - ELO in just 4 clicks/taps.

I am currently experimenting with setting this up with Tags by tagging an "Artist" with the "Related Artists" and it does work to some extent, though it means scrolling down the Artist page to the Tags section and then going through the immediate Tag page to get to the Related Artist page. For this method to work well it also requires tagging an Artist as themselves so they show up properly in all the relevant Related Artist Tag pages. Another downside is the tagged info is then used (I think) by Emby for the "More Like This" section - which is not always relevant to the relationship.

I think this is a great way of browsing/exploring a large music collection and also discovering unknown artist relationships and potentially new music. It would be interesting to know what other music fans think.

[Luke 42077]

46 minutes ago, user24 said:

The Album Artist pages are also my favourite Emby Music pages and adding a "Members" section similar to "Cast & Crew" for Movies would potentially take Emby Music Libraries to another whole level of functionality.

My thoughts are that a "Related Artists" section with direct internal cross-linking (where possible) to the relevant existing "Related Artist" pages would be a great way to browse across a large music library.

Music bands could show the band members and individual artists could show the bands they have been in, e.g.:

The Beatles Related Artists: George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul, McCartney, Ringo Starr.

George Harrison Related Artists: Delaney & Bonnie, The Beatles, The Traveling Wilburys.

This information is available in MusicBrainz directly under the Relationships tab so could potentially be auto-populated by Emby.

 

If this was a step too far for Emby to implement, then at least having a "Related Artists" section that could have user manually entered info and internal links would be a very good step in the right direction. When browsing it would be a fun journey to go through (e.g.): The Beatles - George Harrison - The Traveling Wilburys - Jeff Lynne - ELO in just 4 clicks/taps.

I am currently experimenting with setting this up with Tags by tagging an "Artist" with the "Related Artists" and it does work to some extent, though it means scrolling down the Artist page to the Tags section and then going through the immediate Tag page to get to the Related Artist page. For this method to work well it also requires tagging an Artist as themselves so they show up properly in all the relevant Related Artist Tag pages. Another downside is the tagged info is then used (I think) by Emby for the "More Like This" section - which is not always relevant to the relationship.

I think this is a great way of browsing/exploring a large music collection and also discovering unknown artist relationships and potentially new music. It would be interesting to know what other music fans think.

Hi, yes that’s an interesting idea. Thanks.

[electricwildflower 17]

Differentiating between albums, single, bootlegs, compilations, featured on etc would be welcome. Currently this is how my library looks on my Truenas when browsing the Audio directory to give you reference. In Emby i would like to be able to split the albums, singles, compilations, bootlegs etc instead of clicking on albums and then i am greeted with everything i have of the artist in one window. It would be great if where it says

Songs

Albums

Appears on

 

It would include

Compilations (Best ofs, bsides compilation etc) 
Bootlegs
Live
Singles & EP's
Other
Music videos (Promo videos)
Music DVDS - For live, promo compilations, documentaries, movies etc

Somewhere on the page like movies and TV series it would feature musicians and show you who is either a part of the current line up or they have been part of the line up in the past or even guest musicians on albums and song. Maybe if it could be done it would give you the name of the musician and instrument they play. Maybe split it with current line up on one line and past members on another or all together which ever is easier. 
 

[electricwildflower 17]

Another idea for the music page if it's possible in regards to albums.

Many artists release multiple versions of an album IE European Release, US Release, Vinyl Release, Cassette Release, Expanded edition with extra tracks, Deluxe edition with 2 cd's, French expanded Version, Limited Live edition with extra live cd, 4 cd Expanded boxset and so on and so on. This means for some artists we can have multiple editions of the same album and when browsing through albums on Emby it could be a little tedious if your searching for a specific version of the album and have a lot of different versions. 

Unless i am totally missing something is there a way we could group all the different editions under 1 album instead of having multiple of the same album show so for an example i search for Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures and on the album page for the album there would be some kind of drop down list which would show the standard album as the main choice but i also get to choose which version of the album i want to play IE vinyl rip, US cd release, 2 cd expanded etc. 

So instead of showing 6 versions of the album it would show just 1 and the rest would be grouped under it. Maybe the way a user could have it in their library would be like the photo below and emby pics up on the fact there is multiple versions of the album, of course making sure the user has correctly tagged each version? 

[user24 313]

On 12/10/2023 at 12:57 PM, user24 said:

My thoughts are that a "Related Artists" section with direct internal cross-linking (where possible) to the relevant existing "Related Artist" pages would be a great way to browse across a large music library.

Well… one year on… and I finally have a workable method of achieving this in Emby – while it didn’t actually take a whole year of time, it did take some experimenting to figure out…

I first tried Tags, but the navigation/browsing experience was too disjointed… then, got distracted with trying to separate Artists and Composers… then, tried Collections, but didn’t really make much progress… then, got even more distracted with Country Flag emojis… then, with some community help (thanks  @Happy2Play  @Luke), I discovered that Collections, PLUS some CSS with the Web App, gave a feasible solution…

While the result (to date) isn't quite as elegant as a dedicated “Related Artists” section, it is selectively configurable, unlike the auto generated “More Like This” section, that can sometimes be a bit ‘hit-and-miss’ with the results.

The basic idea is:

• Manually set up “Related Artists” Collections (yes, it takes time)
• Ensure that the main Artist is included in the associated Collection (otherwise some necessary navigation links are missed out)
• Match corresponding Artist/Collection Primary Image, Background Image and Overview Text (so that the pages essentially become extensions of each other)
• Use CSS to exactly align the top sections of Artist and Collection pages
• Use CSS to move the Artist “Included In” section to underneath the Overview (otherwise scrolling down makes the navigation less streamlined)
• Use CSS to make the “Included In” images smaller and less dominating on the Artist pages

The end-result is seamless navigation by “Related Artists” via alternating Artist and Collection pages (starting with either page type) with no need to scroll down the pages. (I guess it would also be possible to exactly match Page Titles text and Primary Images shape, if desired.) Here’s an example, showing just one possible navigation path, starting with The Beatles and ending with Electric Light Orchestra (Note: it’s the music exploring journey that’s meant to be fun, more so than just being a long way of getting to a specific Artist destination):

The above example also shows Artist Country identification (and Country Collections) plus some Artist/Composer separation (both still a work-in-progress).

So far, it’s working well, though I still have many more Collections to fully configure. There’s also the possibility to expand the Collections beyond just Artists, if I want to.

While setting up the “Related Artists” Collections is a standard use of Emby, it’s really the custom CSS that makes this approach a viable navigation/browsing/exploring option. This does result in a doubling up on a lot of the same data, but it’s not noticeable, in use, when the Artist/Collection pages are exactly matched and aligned.

In another year, I expect I’ll probably have modified things even further and HOPEFULLY, by then, the new Emby “Smart” Playlists/Collections/Views/etc… will allow for much more individual customization!

Edited February 21, 2025 by user24
spelling

[user24 313]

For 2000+ Album Artists, I’ve now partially set up 600 “Related Artists” Collections to test out the idea on a larger scale. The (touchscreen) navigation is great and it’s very fast to ‘jump around’ all over my music library now, but the landscape page views still need refining further...

Borrowing ideas from Qobuz and Apple Music, here’s some working full-screen updated examples:

(The LHS images are Artist detail pages and the RHS images are corresponding Collection detail pages.)

Filling the top-of-page landscape view with Artist-specific info only, allows for more Artist detail to be shown. It seems more focused to me, but also less cluttered and less distracting because the Albums/Songs/Other info is hidden below. The layout isn’t quite as good in portrait mode, nor on a small phone screen, but that’s not my goal.

So far, so good… but still a lot more to do, especially with the Sections below, when scrolling down the pages…