How to visualize a Spotify Network in Gephi in just a few steps!

Dr. Verónica Espinoza, 2022.

Twitter @Verukita1

LinkedIn: Dra. Verónica Espinoza

Network by the Author

Spotify is a Swedish multimedia services company founded in 2006, whose product is the homonymous application used to play music via streaming. Its business model is called freemium, which consists of offering a basic free service with advertising and another with additional features (such as better audio quality, free of advertising and unlimited use) through a paid subscription [1].

In this tutorial we will use a tool (open source-web based) to download the data related to the artist of our choice. This tool allows us to explore networks of related artists on Spotify through its API. And the most interesting thing is that this tool offers us to download the generated file (gdf format) ready for visualize it in Gephi [2].

If you want to know more about Gephi, I share this story I wrote on Medium [3].

🚩Let’s start!

Steps to generate a spotify network in Gephi.

STEP 1. Open Spotify Artist Network tool [4] and type the artist of your interest (in this example I typed “The Beatles”). This website allows for exploring networks of related artists on Spotify via its API.

Figure 1. Spotify data via Spotify Artist Network tool (By the author).

STEP 2. Click in download network as gdf file (for visualization in gephi), and then open this file in your Gephi tool, as it’s shown in the following.

Figure 2. Download gdf file and open it in Gephi (By the author).

STEP 3. Run the option of Modularity Class to detect communities (statistics section), color the nodes by partition (appearance section) and run the Force Atlas 2 layout.

Figure 3. Apply statistics, color nodes, and run the layout (By the author).

STEP 4. Finally make the adjustments of your choice in the appearance section. For example, you can rank the size of the nodes by “followers” or “popularity”, adjust the size of the labels by the attribute you want, run “Noverlap” (layout section) so that the nodes can be better appreciated.

Figure 4. Settings of your choice (By the author).

Your network is ready now!

Figure 5. The Beatles Artist Network on Spotify (By the author).

👉These steps were just an example, but you can apply your own stats, color the nodes based on other attributes, or you can run whatever layouts you want!

🙂Use your creativity!

Examples of Spotify Networks

Next, I show you other examples that I did about Spotify Networks.

a) Metallica Artist Network on Spotify

(Radial Axis Layout)

Figure 6. Metallica Artist Network on Spotify (Network by the author).

b) Led Zeppelin Artist Network on Spotify

(Dual circle Layout + Network Splitter 3D)

Figure 7. Led Zeppelin Artist Network on Spotify (Network by the author).

c) Led Zeppelin Artist Network on Spotify

(Radial Axis Layout + Network Splitter 3D)

Figure 8. Led Zeppelin Artist Network on Spotify (Network by the author).

d) Queen´s artist network on Spotify

(Force Atlas Layout + Filters by Modularity Class)

Figure 9. Queen´s artist network on Spotify (Network by the author).

Conclusion

In this tutorial we have learned how to download data from Spotify and how to visualize it in Gephi. It is important to note that the file you download from Spotify can also be visualize it in another tool of your choice (that supports GDF files). In case your favorite tool does not read this format, what you can do is open your file in Gephi and then save it in the format you require.

I hope this tutorial is useful to you!

👍Thanks for reading!

Resources

🌐Spotify Artist Network tool

📥Download Gephi here

🎓Gephi Story on Medium

……

Do you want to learn more about Gephi?

I share other tutorials that I have written about Gephi:

1. What is Gephi? Meet this useful network analysis tool.
2. Are you a beginner in Gephi? Make your first network now!
3. Learn how to make a network in Gephi-Lite and add images to the nodes (I give you the gexf file!)
4. How to publish your Gephi network to the web.
5. Link Prediction Plugin for Gephi.
6. Position Ranking Plugin for Gephi,
7. How to visualize a Spotify Network in Gephi in just a few steps!
8. How to use Word Cloud plugin for Gephi
9. Meet the Gephi color palette and make beautiful visualizations
10. Groups by Partition Plugin for Gephi: “Each node is the aggregation of a group of nodes”
11. Generate a GEXF file from text with ChatGPT and visualize it in Gephi and NodeXL
12. Transform any text into a semantic network with Nocodefunctions App (in just 4 steps)
13. Turn a list of sources and their targets into a network with Nocodefunctions App (and visualize it in Gephi)

References

1. Spotify. In: Enciclopedia SpeedyLook [Internet]. 2022 [cited 2022 Dec 20]. Available from: https://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spotify&oldid=147698807
2. Bastian M., Heymann S., Jacomy M. (2009). Gephi: an open source software for exploring and manipulating networks. International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media
3. Verónica Dr. What is Gephi? Meet this useful network analysis tool [Internet]. Medium. 2022 [cited 2022 Dec 21]. Available from: https://medium.com/@vespinozag/what-is-gephi-meet-this-useful-network-analysis-tool-628a1b42428c
4. Spotify Artist Network [Internet]. [cited 2022 Dec 21]. Available from: https://labs.polsys.net/playground/spotify/