Media Item Metadata 
Section titled “Media Item Metadata ”Music Assistant draws on two layers of metadata. Source metadata comes from wherever the media item actually lives — embedded file tags, .lrc and .nfo files, and music providers such as Plex, Jellyfin, Subsonic, Spotify or Tidal. Online metadata providers (Fanart.tv, The Audio DB, MusicBrainz, Cover Art Archive, iTunes Artwork, LRCLIB, Genius) are dedicated third-party services queried only to fill in fields the source did not supply. Source metadata is always preferred; online metadata is complementary.
Artists
Section titled “Artists”| Metadata Type | Source(s) |
|---|---|
| Name, sort name | File tags, artist.nfo, music providers |
| Genres | artist.nfo, music providers, The Audio DB, derived from track tags when the filesystem provider’s Propagate track genres option is enabled |
| MusicBrainz ID (MBID) | File tags, artist.nfo, music providers, derived via MusicBrainz lookup if missing |
| Biography | artist.nfo (<biography>), music providers, The Audio DB |
| Style, mood, label | The Audio DB |
| Images (thumb, logo, banner, fanart, cutout, landscape, clearart) | Embedded tags, folder images, music providers, Fanart.tv, The Audio DB |
| Links (website, Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm) | The Audio DB |
The MusicBrainz Artist ID is the key that unlocks all online artist enrichment. When no MBID can be determined for an artist (typically because none of the artist’s tracks or albums matched), no online bio or imagery is fetched. Adding the MBID to file tags or to an artist.nfo is the most reliable fix.
Note that the embedded genre tag in audio files is applied to the track only, not to the album or the artist. To get genres on an album or artist itself, either supply an album.nfo / artist.nfo, rely on an online metadata provider (which for artists requires an MBID), or enable Propagate track genres to albums and artists on the local filesystem provider, which derives them from the tracks’ tags.
Propagation only fills genres that are still empty and never overwrites a genre that came from another source. Apart from propagation, sources merge their genres into whatever is already there — an artist.nfo genre plus genres returned by The Audio DB will both end up on the artist.
Albums
Section titled “Albums”| Metadata Type | Source(s) |
|---|---|
| Name, sort name, year, album type | File tags, album.nfo, music providers |
| Genres | album.nfo, music providers, The Audio DB, derived from track tags when the filesystem provider’s Propagate track genres option is enabled |
| MusicBrainz Release Group / Album ID | File tags, album.nfo, music providers |
| Description / review | album.nfo (<review>), music providers, The Audio DB |
| Style, mood, label | The Audio DB |
| Links (Wikipedia, AllMusic, Last.fm, social) | The Audio DB |
| Front cover, disc art | See Artwork |
Tracks
Section titled “Tracks”| Metadata Type | Source(s) |
|---|---|
| Title, version, artists, album, disc / track number, duration, year | File tags, music providers |
| MusicBrainz Recording ID, ISRC, barcode | File tags, music providers |
| Genres, mood, style, description | File tags, music providers, The Audio DB |
| Explicit flag, copyright, grouping, comment | File tags, music providers |
| Lyrics | See Lyrics |
| Volume normalization value | See Loudness Analysis |
Playlists
Section titled “Playlists”Playlists don’t have rich metadata of their own; instead Music Assistant derives:
- Thumbnail See Artwork
- The top genres present across the playlist’s tracks (the eight most common, requiring at least five occurrences each).
Audiobooks
Section titled “Audiobooks”Audiobook items collect publisher, authors, narrators, duration, description and chapter list — sourced from embedded tags or the audiobook provider (Audiobookshelf, Audible, etc.). Cover artwork follows the same precedence as albums.
Podcasts
Section titled “Podcasts”Podcast shows track publisher and total episode count from the podcast provider (Audiobookshelf, Podcast Index, RSS feed, etc.). Per-episode metadata — title, description, artwork — comes directly from the show’s feed.