torelatedArtist

torelatedArtist is a label used in data schemas and APIs to denote an association whereby one artist is linked to another as being related. It is typically implemented as an edge or relation in a graph of artists, directed from the source artist to the related artist. The edge may carry attributes such as a weight or confidence score that reflects how strongly the system considers the pair related.

Data model: In a typical schema, there are Artist entities with unique identifiers. The toRelatedArtist relation connects a source artist to one or more target artists. The relation may be undirected in practice, but is often modeled as directed to reflect a source-to-target navigation. Attributes can include weight, source of the data, timestamp, and whether the relation originated from algorithmic inference, human curation, or a hybrid approach.

Sources and methods: Related artists can be inferred from listening history, co-occurrence in playlists, genre overlap, collaborations, and social connections. They may also result from manual tagging by curators or from machine learning models like collaborative filtering and graph embeddings.

Applications: The toRelatedArtist relation underpins Related Artists sections on artist pages, discovery features, and playlist generation. It enables users to explore music with stylistic or audience overlap and supports recommendation engines.

Limitations: The notion of relatedness is inherently subjective and dynamic. The set of related artists can change over time with new releases, trending genres, and shifts in listening behavior. Data quality depends on sources and licensing.

Implementation notes: In code, toRelatedArtist can be implemented as a function or method that, given an artist ID, returns a collection of related artist IDs with accompanying weights and metadata.