Would like to be able to tag and organize artists

[frankz]

If there is a program that does this, why would you also need Musicbee to do this?

If the program that does this is slow and complicated, it is likely that Musicbee would become slower and more complicated by including these functions.

There is no definitive source for this information like there is for music file tags.  The question we all have is then what would this "button" connect to in order to retrieve the information?

The button? Do you want me to write you the source in machine language?

That may be a very good idea.
Perhaps you can create a plugin for this in machine language?

Yes, that seems like the best course of action here.  Obviously OP has some concept of how this would and should work.  Creating it to his specs to demonstrate its effectiveness and usefulness would be an interesting project.

[barles]

I guess Fox63 is referring to what the old, no longer updated, music collector database CATraxx offered.
Here is the link to the help page explaining the artist/person table and the GUI image.

Probably outside the scope of Steven plans for MusicBee, but i understand there are users who would like to register all the possible data for their audio media.

[hiccup]

I guess Fox63 is referring to what the old, no longer updated, music collector database CATraxx offered.

There's probably a reason why that failed.

MusicBee already has the 'Biography' feature.
And it is also very simple to create weblink shortcuts for artists to Wikipedia, Discogs, AllMusic, RYM, etc.
Such shortcuts take only a single mouseclick to learn anything you may want to know about an artist.

To me it makes no sense to burden MusicBee with having some internal database structure allowing for some restricted information fields that will be next to impossible to populate and/or keep up-to-date, when all this information is already easily available using the biography feature and weblinks to these music databases.

It just doesn't seem a realistic or well-thought-through idea to me.

So after this discussion and thinking out loud, it's a definitive -1 from me.

[Mayibongwe]

Alias, Date of birth, date of death, age (which the program could easily calculate), nationality...etc
In this way the artists could be grouped by nationality or age or something else.

I'm normally not one to shoot down wishlist requests, but consider the following:

Amongst other deciding criteria for when Steven's looking at a request, it goes without saying that he also thinks about the number of people that'd be likely to use such a feature.
So, how many users do we envision would take the slightest effort to create & maintain a grouping/playlist for:

- list of songs released by 18yr olds
- list of songs released by artists born in 1995
- list of songs released by artists/bands who died/disbanded between 2010 & 2014
- list of songs released by Kenyan and Italian artists (this one's not that bad but still...)

Like some have said here, I think the above information would not add much value to one's music listening experience (if needed, custom tags per track already do the job)
That information sure is interesting when read up on Wikipedia and such, but it doesn't seem worth the effort to upkeep on a music application.

[Mayibongwe]

#1   I am Italian and MB always finds biographies exclusively in English and therefore I find myself forced to find the biography in my language for each artist and paste it in the specific field. Hard work but I'm doing it, calmly, but I'm doing it.

#2   Among other things, MB often cannot find a biography for Italian singers due to spelling errors in the name. For example: Loredana Bertè (this is how it is written exactly):
        on iTunes it is written Loredanda Berte' and in the music explorer it does not exist under any circumstances, unless you write the name incorrectly.

#1   I seem to recall a thread where it was mentioned that MusicBee follows the language option set in the general preferences.
        e.g If you are using Korean as the translation, the artist bios would be retrieved in Korean if available on last.fm. Idk if this is still the case though.

#2   Sounds reasonable, but would have to be brought up as a separate wishlist request.

[hiccup]

So, how many users do we envision would take the slightest effort to create & maintain a grouping/playlist for:
- list of songs released by 18yr olds
- list of songs released by artists born in 1995
- list of songs released by artists/bands who died/disbanded between 2010 & 2014
- list of songs released by Kenyan and Italian artists (this one's not that bad but still...)
Like some have said here, I think the above information would not add much value to one's music listening experience (if needed, custom tags per track already do the job)
That information sure is interesting when read up on Wikipedia and such, but it doesn't seem worth the effort to upkeep on a music application.

Hm, you make me possibly reconsider my -1 on this request.
I might be interested to filter on artists that were born in Vatican City and died from a venereal disease.
And more things are coming to mind right now. (that I probably shouldn't share on this forum)

[tjinc]

I might be interested to filter on artists that were born in Vatican City and died from a venereal disease.

#1   I seem to recall a thread where it was mentioned that MusicBee follows the language option set in the general preferences.
        e.g If you are using Korean as the translation, the artist bios would be retrieved in Korean if available on last.fm. Idk if this is still the case though.

I think this functionality was removed - see this post.

[Fox63]

My intent was to have software that was not exclusively a cataloger of songs but contained other information that could be quickly consulted.
It's true with one click you can access a variety of information on different sites. I myself have inserted automatic calls to pages of Last FM or DiscoGs and others in the internet preferences.
It's like this today but in the future? This information, which is so easy to find today, could become subject to charges.
When was Elvis Presley born? €5 or $5 whenever you want to know.
Extreme example but...
Not only!!! In Italy (the third technological world) not everyone can enjoy the internet. For example, I go online with a cellular SIM in a router that brings me 30Mb of speed, not always, sometimes it doesn't work at all.
It's disappointing to search for something online and see the No Internet Connection message.
So having an internal property database I don't find it to be a bad idea.
In any case I take note of the will of the people.

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

I am also going to -1 this request.

@Fox63, you can use the <Keywords> multi-value tag to record he information you deserve.
You will need to do it with each track belonging to an artist, but that is not impossible, difficult nor cumbersome to do.

For example, all of the tracks for a particular artist in my library contain:
female; jazz pianist; pianist; keyboardist; jazz keyboardist; Boston; Massachusetts; United States; Asian; Japanese
...in the <Keywords> tag. If I wanted to add more descriptive information, I could (using ; to separate the values.)
This will allow you the ability to use the Track Information panel to display the information you desire.

[brouwerik]

I wouldn't say no to this feature but it's a bit much work to add for something that can already be achieved
Using custom tags for artists already works fine in MB in my opinion. I'm using it for both browsing and organizing
It's not 100% perfect because of songs with with multiple artists but in 99,99% it's fine and I'm pretty happy with it  

[ThY]

+1 if only to avoid using workarounds for:

- Manage different artists who have the same name.
- Manage similar artists who operate under different names.
(like Aphex Twin for example)