This post is the first episode of the #getyourdata series. I will show you how to use Python to get data from Spotify. If you are a programmer, a Data Scientist, Engineer or anyone who works with Python, It could be interesting to learn some new API to improve and enrich your skills creating a new project to add to your portfolio. Here you will learn the basics to access and interact with Spotify through a Python library: Spotipy

Spotify in Python

Spotify provides Web API on which the Python community has developed an API wrapper called Spotipy. To install Spotipy, as is usual for python developers, you need pip running the following command from a terminal

> pip install spotipy

If you have any problems during installation you can consult the documentation on Github.

Before starting

Before starting let’s see the necessary steps to use Spotipy API successfully:

Register an account on Spotify, it is not required premium account: Spotify
Access to your Developer Dashboard: Developer Dashboard
Create an app: Dashboard Spotify Developer

Register a Spotify account

It is easy to register on Spotify at the following link: Register Spotify Account

You can register a free account or premium, it is the same.

Access to Developer Dashboard

Now access your Developer Dashboard and click on Sign up for a free Spotify account here (if you need to register an account).

Image shows the login page of Spotify's developer dashboard

In case you already have an account, click on Login using your credentials.

Spotify Developer dashboard choosing the app

Create an app

Once you arrived on your dashboard click on create an app, a dialogue box will appear asking you a name and a description. Then, you must accept terms and conditions and click on create, as a result, you’ll see your new application in your dashboard.

You have to click on the green box with your app’s name to access App’s Dashboard where you can look at insights and some other information. Especially, the most important one is the top-left section where are displayed the client id and client secret (do not spread these two keys).

Client Id and Client Secret to use in your Python script

Python Tutorial for Spotipy

Ok, no more words, it’s time for action.

Let’s start importing the necessary libraries and to set the variables CLIENT_ID and CLIENT_SECRET with the values provided by App’s Dashboard.

import spotipy
from spotipy.oauth2 import SpotifyOAuth

CLIENT_ID = 'XXXXXXXXXXXX'
CLIENT_SECRET = 'XXXXXXXXXXXX'

Authentication Flow

Since it is not possible to use the Spotify API without authorization we need to get it through an authorization flow, no worry! Here is an example.

scopes = ["user-follow-read", 'ugc-image-upload', 'user-read-playback-state',
          'user-modify-playback-state', 'user-read-currently-playing', 'user-read-private',
          'user-read-email', 'user-follow-modify', 'user-follow-read', 'user-library-modify',
          'user-library-read', 'streaming', 'app-remote-control', 'user-read-playback-position',
          'user-top-read', 'user-read-recently-played', 'playlist-modify-private', 'playlist-read-collaborative',
          'playlist-read-private', 'playlist-modify-public']

# L'auth flow si basa sul eseguire questo codice
# Andare alla redirect uri e ricopiare l'intera url nel prompt in console
sp = spotipy.Spotify(auth_manager=SpotifyOAuth(client_id=CLIENT_ID,
                                               client_secret=CLIENT_SECRET,
                                               redirect_uri='http://127.0.0.1:9090',
                                               scope=scopes))

First, the variable scopes is a list of permissions that the user has to accept to authorize our application to access the information you desire. In few words, the scopes list contains all possible permissions from the documentation, for more details you can refer to the Scopes Documentation

Second, the Redirect URI parameter must match the value of Redirect URI set in your application. So that, go to Your Dashboard (navigate to your application and then [Edit Settings] on the top-right menu). The redirect URI can be any valid URI, it could be http://localhost:9090 as well as http://127.0.0.1:9090 or your website and so on.

Note: You can also set an environment variable SPOTIFY_REDIRECT_URI in your Pc’s settings, of course, the value of this variable should match the value in the app’s dashboard.

First Run!

You can run the snippet and you will be redirected to the specified URI, accept the requested permissions (specified by you with the scope parameter), you’ll be redirected to another page. Ok! Now, copy the generated URL from the address bar.

When you come back to the program in execution, you can see that it is asking for an URL, paste the URL copied in the previous step and press Enter.

Fiuuu! It was long but now you have a new .cache file in your project directory, this file is useful to regenerate the token just obtained through the Authorization Flow.

Access to your own data

You are ready! Now it’s time to access our data as I promise. Let’s start with user data

user_data = sp.current_user()
print('My data:')
print('Name:', user_data['display_name'])
print('Followers:', user_data['followers']['total'])
print('Link:', user_data['external_urls']['spotify'])
print('Account:', user_data['product'])

My data:
Name: Chaw359
Followers: 0
Link: https://open.spotify.com/user/hqep88qj40tzqtzoxcbsm371z
Account: premium

You can see, it is possible to access our personal data and, in general, to the personal data of the user that uses our app.

Followed Artists

Moreover, it is possible to access to user’s followed artists

print('Followed Artists')
artists = sp.current_user_followed_artists()['artists']
while artists:
    for i, artist in enumerate(artists['items']):
        print(f'{i} - {artist["name"]}')
        print(f'\tFollowers: {artist["followers"]["total"]}')
        print(f'\tPopularity: {artist["popularity"]}')
        print(f'\tGenres: {artist["genres"]}')

    if artists['next']:
        artists = sp.next(artists)
    else:
        artists = None

Followed Artists:
0 - Salmo
	Followers: 2123562
	Popularity: 77
	Genres: ['italian hip hop', 'italian underground hip hop', 'rap sardegna']
1 - Marracash
	Followers: 1503078
	Popularity: 82
	Genres: ['italian hip hop', 'italian underground hip hop', 'rap napoletano']
2 - Guè
	Followers: 1764304
	Popularity: 80
	Genres: ['italian hip hop']
3 - Eminem
	Followers: 50330187
	Popularity: 93
	Genres: ['detroit hip hop', 'hip hop', 'rap']

Playlists

Furthermore, it is possible to access user’s playlists:

print('Playlists:')
playlists = sp.current_user_playlists()
while playlists:
    for i, playlist in enumerate(playlists['items']):
        print(f'{i} - {playlist["name"]}')
        print(f'\tNumber of tracks: {playlist["tracks"]["total"]}')
        print(f'\tUrl: {playlist["external_urls"]}')
        print(f'\tDescription: {playlist["description"]}')
    if playlists['next']:
        playlists = sp.next(playlists)
    else:
        playlists = None

Playlists:
0 - Italia
	Number of tracks: 4
	Url: {'spotify': 'https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6iXzIY2WLVxDC8pUf05XKD'}
	Description: Favourite Italian songs
1 - Napule
	Number of tracks: 16
	Url: {'spotify': 'https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3OPQo92siyKFYZNICmxTmC'}
	Description: Naples songs
2 - Rap
	Number of tracks: 155
	Url: {'spotify': 'https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4tttzPBFW7LEaAEiVkj80E'}
	Description: Rap and hip pop songs

In addition, from each playlist item, it is possible to get the playlist id with which to obtain the playlist details. Here is an example.

playlist = sp.playlist(playlist_id='xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx')
print('Playlist name:', playlist['name'])
playlist_tracks = playlist['tracks']
while playlist_tracks:
    for i, track in enumerate(playlist_tracks['items']):
        print(f'{i} - {track["track"]["name"]}')
        print(f'\tAdded at: {track["added_at"]}')
        # from artists key you can access to artists details
        print(f'\tArtist: {track["track"]["artists"][0]["name"]}')
        # from album key you can access to album details
        print(f'\tAlbum: {track["track"]["album"]["name"]}')
        print(f'\tDuration: {round(track["track"]["duration_ms"] / 60000, 2)} minutes')
        print(f'\tPopularity: {track["track"]["popularity"]}')

    if playlist_tracks['next']:
        playlist_tracks = sp.next(playlist_tracks)
    else:
        playlist_tracks = None

Playlist name: Rap Motivazionale
0 - Veleno 8 (feat. Gemitaiz)
	Added at: 2021-11-19T00:01:00Z
	Artist: MadMan
	Album: MM Vol. 4
	Duration: 3.04 minutes
	Popularity: 70
1 - LORO
	Added at: 2021-11-19T00:01:00Z
	Artist: Marracash
	Album: NOI, LORO, GLI ALTRI
	Duration: 3.3 minutes
	Popularity: 76
2 - Russell Crowe
	Added at: 2021-11-19T00:01:00Z
	Artist: Salmo
	Album: Midnite (Deluxe Version)
	Duration: 2.96 minutes
	Popularity: 3
......

Recently Played

Of course, it is possible to access to user’s recently played songs (but only the 50 recently played).

print('Recently Played')
recents = sp.current_user_recently_played()
while recents:
    for i, track in enumerate(recents['items']):
        print(f'{i} - {track["track"]["name"]}')
    if recents['next']:
        recents = sp.next(recents)
    else:
        recents = None

0 - Driving Home for Christmas
1 - This Is Christmas Time
2 - Let It Snow
3 - My Christmas Baby (The Sweetest Gift)
....

Conclusion

To conclude, Spotipy API is a really simple and amazing Python library to use and gives the possibility to access a wide range of users’ data, songs, artists, playlists, podcasts and moreover. There are infinite ways to integrate this API everywhere. It’s up to you.

Just a minute to leave feedback, feel free to leave a comment or a like or both! See you in the next post: How to get data from your Strava’s account

Post Views: 4,646

#API #Projects #Python #Tutorial