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I'm looking for a music player/music library manager that allows me to see a list of artists sorted by the number of tracks I have for that artist. Winamp does this, but I haven't found any Ubuntu-compatible applications that will. GMusicBrowser comes the closest.

I've tried Banshee, Amarok, Guayadeque, Audacious, and looked at screenshots for a bunch more (Clementine, Exaile, Quodlibet, Jajuk, etc.).

Again, I'm looking for the ability to sort by how many songs I own per artist.

Alternately, the ability to show a filtered list of artists based on the number of tracks (e.g. show me only the artists with more than, say, 10 tracks) would work.

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  • Many Linux audio players store user's media library in sqlite format. Then you can use sql querying on database file and output PLS/M3U list as one kind of approach
    – zetah
    Feb 2, 2012 at 23:37
  • Thanks, @zetah. Not sure that would specifically get me what I want, though I could probably make it work. My issue is that I have 80 or so artists with lots of tracks, and a couple hundred with one or two tracks. So when I want to browse for someone to listen to (meaning an artist I would listen to for a while) it's hard to pick out the 80 or so ones I care about. Playlists tend to be more about tracks to play, rather than artists -- can't think of a player that has the ability to display the lists of artists represented in a particular playlist. It's a good idea, though. Feb 3, 2012 at 21:33
  • I can get you there with QuodLibet and it Python console, but... You are talking about common feature which is distinguished with separate tags: ALBUM ARTIST/BAND and ARTIST. Those artist in your library that have 2-3 tracks are probably part of compilation in which case they are filtered by ALBUM ARTIST tag - that's the purpose of this tag. If ALBUM ARTIST is not defined it should fall-back to ARTIST. If I were on Windows I'd use foobar2000 with Facets, but it doesn't really matter which tool you use if you know how to do it. As said I can post Python snippet for QuodLibet is you use it
    – zetah
    Feb 4, 2012 at 3:18
  • That (QL Python snippet) would be just as similar as querying sqlite database and producing playlist. You'll face playlist sorted by artist song count. After that you'll need to correct tags to make your future music browsing easier
    – zetah
    Feb 4, 2012 at 3:23
  • I don't think you can do this with an Ubuntu music player but under wine I would recommend Winamp or Songbird Feb 5, 2012 at 14:31

3 Answers 3

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After a little back-and-forth with the lead developer, it's clear that gmusicbrowser actually does everything I want.

In the Artist pane, right-click and do OptionsSort ByNumber of Songs in Filter. For additional goodness, right-click and check Show Buttons, and adjust the numeric dropdown that appears in the button bar to select a minimum number of songs that an artist must have in order to appear.

I've found the UI a little unintuitive, but in terms of features gmusicbrowser is turning out to be terrific.

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  • darn, yesterday I posted an answer recommending gmusicbrowser, but having no personal experience with it, and from the website it didn't look like it would be able to sort by number, so I deleted it again. :-P
    – Christoph
    Feb 9, 2012 at 13:01
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You could try install Winamp using Wine.

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  • 1
    Please elaborate what's the point of Winamp here. Many Linux users tend to be nervous when someone suggests installing a closed-source program or anything depending on wine. On the other hand, if you explain how it works and satisfies the need, it will be much appreciated. Nov 28, 2013 at 20:56
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Because I had some similiar ideas like "intelligent" playlists that correlate play counts and skip counts and pick songs based on user behaviour, I started implementing a java clone of iTunes a little while ago (I picked java because I needed it to be cross-platform and I was most familiar with java at that time).

I didn't do much with it though, but the base works (mostly) if you're interested, don't hesitate to pm me. http://code.google.com/p/jamp/

Although, i just looked into gmusicbrowser and it seems to do everything i want (i'll need to port it to windows & mac :D)

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