Weekly Top Artists

Introduction

This report provides an automated analysis of the top artists from the past week based on total plays. The data is sourced directly from an API and is visualized using an interactive plot. The goal is to provide a quick yet insightful overview of the most popular artists during the week.

We start by fetching the data from the music-to-scrape API. Then, we visualize it using Python.

Extracting data from API

To begin, we retrieve the latest data on the top 5 artists from the API. The data includes the artist names and the total number of plays they received over the past week.

The code:

  • The function get_top_artists_dataframe() is defined to extract the top 5 artists from the API.
    • It begins by sending a GET request to the API endpoint. If the request is successful, the JSON data is parsed to retrieve the artist names and their play counts.
    • The unix_start timestamp is converted to a readable date format to determine the week number for the report.
    • The data is structured into a Pandas DataFrame, making it easier to manipulate and visualize later on.
    • If the API request fails, the function will print an error message with the HTTP status code.
  • The data from the most recent week is shown with running the function get_top_artists_dataframe()
Code 
# Import the required libraries
import requests
import json
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from datetime import datetime 
import plotly.express as px

# Function to get top 5 artists with total plays

def get_top_artists_dataframe():
    # Specify the URL of the API
    api_url = "https://api.music-to-scrape.org"
    
    # Send an HTTP GET request to the API
    response = requests.get(api_url+'/charts/top-artists')
    
    # Check if the request was successful
    if response.status_code == 200:
        # Parse the JSON response
        data = response.json()
        
        # Extract the chart data and timestamps
        artists_data = data.get('chart', [])
        unix_start = data.get('unix_start')

        # Convert the unix_start timestamp to a datetime object
        start_date = datetime.utcfromtimestamp(unix_start)
        week_number = start_date.isocalendar().week
        
        # Create lists to hold artist names and plays
        artist_names = []
        total_plays = []
        
        # Populate the lists with data
        for item in artists_data:
            artist_names.append(item['name'])
            total_plays.append(item['plays'])
        
        # Create a DataFrame from the lists
        df = pd.DataFrame({
            'Artist': artist_names,
            'Total Plays': total_plays,
            'Week Number': week_number
        })
        return df
    else:
        print("Failed to retrieve data. Status code:", response.status_code)
        return None

# Dataset 
get_top_artists_dataframe()
Artist Total Plays Week Number
0 SNOWPATROL 48 35
1 Mario Rosenstock 42 35
2 Stevie Ray Vaughan 40 35
3 Vangelis 39 35
4 The Jackson Southernaires 39 35

Create interactive barplot

The next step is to visualize the top 5 artists. An interactive bar plot (see@bar-plot) is created to provide a dynamic view of the data, allowing users to engage with the chart by hovering over the bars to see more details about the aritsts and their total play counts.

The code:

  • The interactive_bar_plot() function generates an interactive bar chart using the Plotly library.
    • It ensures that the data is present
    • It retrieves the week number for context.
    • The data is sorted by total plays to highlight the most popular artists at the top.
    • A title dynamically reflects the week number, ensuring that each week’s report is accurately labeled.
Code 
def interactive_bar_plot(df):
    if df is not None:

        # Get week number from the DataFrame (to include in dynamic title)
        week_number = get_top_artists_dataframe()["Week Number"].iloc[0]

        # Sort the DataFrame by 'Total Plays' in descending order 
        df = df.sort_values(by='Total Plays', ascending=False)

        # Create an interactive bar chart with Plotly
        fig = px.bar(get_top_artists_dataframe(), x='Total Plays', y='Artist', 
                 title=f'Total Plays for Top 5 Artists - Week {week_number}',
                 labels={'Total Plays':'Total Plays'},
                 hover_data={'Artist':True, 'Total Plays':True, 'Week Number':False})

        fig.update_layout(xaxis_title='Artist', yaxis_title='Total Plays',
                      xaxis_tickangle=-45, template='plotly_white')
        fig.show()

# Create plot with recent data extracted from API
interactive_bar_plot(get_top_artists_dataframe())