LABSCO SUMMARY

One music surface instead of four API clients.

Spotify answers what a track is, Genius answers what the words mean, LrcLib gives you those words with timings, and Last.fm answers who else sounds like this and what is charting where. Having all four behind one connection is what makes an artist question answerable in a single pass — and because playlists are writable, the answer can end up in a playlist without leaving the conversation.

What it is

A music research server spanning four sources: Spotify's catalog and playlists, Genius song and artist pages, LrcLib lyrics, and Last.fm charts and similarity data.

What you get

Spotify search across tracks, albums, artists and playlists, plus catalog lookups for one item or several at once
An artist's top tracks and albums, an album's tracks, new releases, the available genres, and recommendations from seed tracks, artists or genres
Playlists read and changed — renamed, flipped between public and private, tracks added and removed — and the ones the current user owns or follows listed
Featured and category playlists, and audiobooks with their chapters
Genius songs, artists and the crowd-sourced annotations that explain their lyrics
Plain-text and time-synced lyrics from LrcLib
Last.fm artist information, similar artists, top tracks and albums, tags, album information, and global or per-country charts

Requirements

Spotify API credentials — a client ID and secret created in the Spotify developer dashboard, supplied as environment settings. Token exchange is handled for you. Runs under Node from the published package.

Setup effort

One command plus credentials — npm install -g @thomaswawra/artistlens, then supply credentials

See installation options

USE CASES

01

Researching an artist properly

Pull the catalog record and top tracks, then cross the result with who Last.fm says sounds similar.

get_artistget_artist_top_tracksget_lastfm_artist_similar

02

Building a playlist from a brief

Search for the seeds, ask for recommendations from them, and push the results straight into the playlist.

searchget_recommendationsadd_tracks_to_playlist

03

Cleaning up a playlist that drifted

Read what is in it, strip the tracks that no longer fit, and rename it or change who can see it.

get_playlist_itemsremove_tracks_from_playlistmodify_playlist

04

Reading the lyrics with the story behind them

Get the words with their timings from one source and the line-by-line annotations from another, side by side.

get_lyricsget_genius_songget_genius_annotations

05

Seeing what is big in a specific country

Read the country charts for artists and tracks rather than the global ones.

get_lastfm_geo_top_artistsget_lastfm_geo_top_tracks

43 tools

Counted once with only startup setup. Other versions, modes or optional credentials may expose a different list.

`add_tracks_to_playlist`

Add one or more tracks to a playlist

BEFORE YOU INSTALL

What to know first

Tools you get

43 tools when we connected. The documentation lists 24; the other nineteen use Genius and Last.fm, with no documented credentials. get_artist_related_artists and get_playlist_tracks are documented but did not respond, and modify_playlist, add_tracks_to_playlist and remove_tracks_from_playlist change your account.

Requires

npx on PATH
SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID in your environment
SPOTIFY_CLIENT_SECRET in your environment

Where it runs

Both documented clients run the server on your machine.

CONTEXT COST

Moderate Standing cost

Rated by the size of the 43 tool definitions that ride along on every turn, not by how many there are

INSTALLATION

Connect your client

Server setup

TERMINAL

npm install -g @thomaswawra/artistlens

MCP Clients

Claude Desktop, Cline

JSON

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "spotify": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": [
        "-y",
        "@thomaswawra/artistlens"
      ],
      "env": {
        "SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID": "<YOUR_SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID>",
        "SPOTIFY_CLIENT_SECRET": "<YOUR_SPOTIFY_CLIENT_SECRET>"
      },
      "disabled": false,
      "autoApprove": []
    }
  }
}

ArtistLens

One music surface instead of four API clients.

What it is

What you get

Requirements

Setup effort

Researching an artist properly

Building a playlist from a brief

Cleaning up a playlist that drifted

Reading the lyrics with the story behind them

Seeing what is big in a specific country

43 tools

add_tracks_to_playlist

get_access_token

get_album

get_album_tracks

get_artist

get_artist_albums

get_artist_top_tracks

get_audiobook

get_audiobook_chapters

get_available_genres

get_category_playlists

get_current_user_playlists

get_featured_playlists

get_genius_annotations

get_genius_artist

get_genius_artist_songs

get_genius_song

get_lastfm_album_info

get_lastfm_artist_info

get_lastfm_artist_similar

get_lastfm_artist_tags

get_lastfm_artist_top_albums

get_lastfm_artist_top_tracks

get_lastfm_geo_top_artists

get_lastfm_geo_top_tracks

get_lastfm_top_artists

get_lastfm_top_tracks

get_lyrics

get_multiple_albums

get_multiple_artists

get_multiple_audiobooks

get_new_releases

get_playlist

get_playlist_items

get_recommendations

get_track

modify_playlist

remove_tracks_from_playlist

search

search_genius

search_lastfm_album

search_lastfm_artist

search_lyrics

What to know first

Tools you get

Requires

Where it runs

Moderate Standing cost

Connect your client

Server setup

MCP Clients

Claude Desktop, Cline

Same category

Tidal

Spotify Gradio MCP Server

LLM Jukebox

YouTube Music MCP

`add_tracks_to_playlist`

`get_access_token`

`get_album`

`get_album_tracks`

`get_artist`

`get_artist_albums`

`get_artist_top_tracks`

`get_audiobook`

`get_audiobook_chapters`

`get_available_genres`

`get_category_playlists`

`get_current_user_playlists`

`get_featured_playlists`

`get_genius_annotations`

`get_genius_artist`

`get_genius_artist_songs`

`get_genius_song`

`get_lastfm_album_info`

`get_lastfm_artist_info`

`get_lastfm_artist_similar`

`get_lastfm_artist_tags`

`get_lastfm_artist_top_albums`

`get_lastfm_artist_top_tracks`

`get_lastfm_geo_top_artists`

`get_lastfm_geo_top_tracks`

`get_lastfm_top_artists`

`get_lastfm_top_tracks`

`get_lyrics`

`get_multiple_albums`

`get_multiple_artists`

`get_multiple_audiobooks`

`get_new_releases`

`get_playlist`

`get_playlist_items`

`get_recommendations`

`get_track`

`modify_playlist`

`remove_tracks_from_playlist`

`search`

`search_genius`

`search_lastfm_album`

`search_lastfm_artist`

`search_lyrics`