BBC Landing Page
Hi, and welcome to MusicBrainz! This page is intended to give you a few starting points to edit MusicBrainz, whether you're an actual artist or just an user of the BBC Music site. Please read it (and any other guides relevant to what you want to do) before starting to edit! If after all that you are stuck and still don't know how to do what you wanted, then contact us so we can help you and hopefully make the guides more useful for other users.
Introduction
What is MusicBrainz?
MusicBrainz is a community-maintained open source encyclopedia of music information. Data in MusicBrainz can be edited by anyone, so artists and fans can fix and extend the information. Note that unlike in Wikipedia, changes to the data don't usually apply automatically, but have to be voted on!
How does the BBC use MusicBrainz's data?
The BBC uses the MusicBrainz database as the backbone of their artist pages. This allows them to benefit from the effort of MusicBrainz users, and at the same time provide a relatively simple way for people interested in the artists to add more information to their pages.
How is MusicBrainz important to artists?
In order for the BBC to display a page for an artist, that artist must exist in the MusicBrainz database. The artist pages visible at bbc.co.uk/music are systematically linked to from across the BBC wherever editorially relevant (eg. from tracklists, playlists, charts, certain homepages, event pages etc). On each page is aggregated all related BBC content for the artist, including videos, audio clips, album reviews and play count information.
Guides
Creating a MusicBrainz account
First, you'll have to create a MusicBrainz user account. Note that MusicBrainz doesn't have any kind of special artist or corporate accounts, but if you represent a company it is recommended that you show it in your username, eg. "universal_bob" or "bbc_john".
Creating a MusicBrainz artist page
Creating a new artist is simple, just follow the How to Add an Artist guide! Don't try to turn an existing, different artist into your own entry, just add a new artist for you and work with that! If the BBC have attributed radio plays to the wrong artist, contact them once you have created the right one and let them know of the problem!
Once the artist page has been created on MusicBrainz it may take up to 1 hour to show up on the BBC Music website, and up to 3 hours for it to appear in search results.
Adding links to the artist
The BBC takes most of their links for an artist from MusicBrainz. For adding a new link, follow the guide for adding URLs.
Note that the Last.fm links are automatically added by the BBC, and they can't be added or modified through MusicBrainz.
Adding a biography
The BBC displays biography extracts from the Wikipedia page related to the artist in MusicBrainz. You can add the Wikipedia page like any other URL.
Adding a photo
The BBC does not use MusicBrainz data to display an artist photo, but a combination of Getty Images and publicity shots. Adding an image link to MusicBrainz won't get it shown in the BBC page.
If you want to add a photo for an artist, please contact the BBC directly.
Adding releases
For adding releases (albums, singles, etc.) to your artist, follow the How to Add a Release guide.
