Three related fixes to make album/track results look like a real
artist discography instead of a firehose of fan-compiled bootlegs.
1. Drop 'compilation' from the release-group browse primary-type filter.
MB's OR filter (`type=album|ep|single|compilation`) silently breaks
when 'compilation' is included — Metallica drops from 1076 matches
to 82 because `compilation` is a SECONDARY type on MB, not a primary
type. The invalid value corrupts the filter for all types, not just
itself. Now we request `type=album|ep|single` which returns the full
1076; actual compilations (primary=Album + secondary=[Compilation])
are filtered out by the studio-preference logic below.
2. Filter release-groups with non-studio secondary-types
(Live/Compilation/Soundtrack/Remix/Demo/Mixtape/Interview/Audiobook/
Audio drama). For Metallica, the first 100 browse results are 12
studio albums + 83 live bootlegs + 5 compilations — without this
filter the Albums section was dominated by 2019-2021 broadcast
recordings. Falls back to the unfiltered list if filtering leaves
the result set empty (covers live-only niche artists).
3. Sort chronologically ASC by first-release-date. Wikipedia-style
discography ordering — debut album on top, then chronological.
Previous DESC sort put the most recent release on top which, for
prolific artists, meant 2020s material before their classics.
Track side of the same fix:
- Re-orders each recording's `releases` array to put studio releases
first before `_recording_to_track` picks up the first release for
album context. Without this, MB's arbitrary release order often
buried the canonical studio album under random live bootlegs.
- Filters out recordings that only exist on live/compilation release-
groups (keeps the ones with at least one studio release). Falls
back to the full set if the artist has no studio recordings at all.
- Sorts recordings by earliest studio-release year ASC so classic
tracks surface first.
Smoke test against live MB API confirmed:
- Artists: [Metallica score=100]
- Albums: Kill 'Em All (1983) → Ride the Lightning → Master of Puppets
→ ...And Justice for All → Metallica (Black Album) → Load → Reload
→ St. Anger → Death Magnetic → Lulu (2011)
- Tracks: real Metallica recordings (Killing Time, Nothing Else
Matters, Creeping Death, etc.) — a few remastered demos still leak
in where MB metadata quality is thin, but the bulk is correct.
- Total latency: 3.5 seconds.
4 new tests covering the studio filter, live-only fallback, preferred
release ordering, and live-only recording exclusion.
Credit: kettui flagged the poor MB results during PR #371 review.
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