About Vinylsaur
I've always wanted a place to browse music this way: who was born today, which album is hitting an anniversary, which artist I've never heard of happens to share my birthday. That place didn't really exist, so I built Vinylsaur to be it. Select "Artists" or "Albums", browse Today, This Week, or This Month, or search any date that means something to you.
Vinylsaur is for people who want more than an algorithm-picked stream of songs. Every birthday and every anniversary here is a small door into an artist's story or an album's history, something to actually click into and learn from, not just scroll past. If you feel a real connection to music, and you like the idea of stumbling onto an artist you'd never have found otherwise, this site is for you.
How Vinylsaur Gets Its Data
Vinylsaur gets all artist names, birth dates, album titles, and release dates from Wikidata. Wikidata is an open data project. Wikipedia uses Wikidata too. Vinylsaur does not keep its own music database. Vinylsaur sends a query to Wikidata for this data. Vinylsaur asks for people with a music occupation, for example musician, singer, composer, songwriter, or producer. Vinylsaur asks for people with a recorded birth date. Vinylsaur also asks for albums with a recorded release date.
Vinylsaur gets artist photos and short biography links from Wikipedia. If an artist has no photo on Wikidata, Vinylsaur uses the Wikipedia page image instead. If Wikipedia also has no photo, Vinylsaur uses a Last.fm photo. Vinylsaur gets album covers in a similar way: Last.fm first, then the MusicBrainz Cover Art Archive, then iTunes. Vinylsaur gets preview clips from iTunes, when iTunes has them. These are independent, third-party catalogs, so some artists and albums have no photo, cover, or preview available. See the FAQ below for more on this.
How Results Are Ranked
Some days have more than one matching artist or album. Vinylsaur sorts these results by popularity, not by alphabetical order. Vinylsaur measures popularity by English Wikipedia page views over the last 30 days. This method is not a perfect measure of fame. But this method uses real, current data instead of a fixed list.
How Often Data Updates
The "Today" and "This Week" views update automatically at midnight. Vinylsaur uses your browser's clock and time zone for this. So "Today" means today in your time zone, not the server's time zone. If you keep a browser tab open past midnight, Vinylsaur refreshes the page data automatically.
Favorites, No Account Needed
Select the heart icon on a card to save it to your Favorites list. Vinylsaur has no account and no login. Favorites stay only in your browser's local storage. Vinylsaur servers do not receive or see this data. If you clear your browser data, or if you use a different browser or device, you get a new, empty Favorites list. For more information, see the Privacy Policy.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you determine an artist's birthday?
Vinylsaur uses the birth date from Wikidata. Vinylsaur does not check this data independently. If the Wikidata record is wrong, or if someone corrects it later, Vinylsaur shows the new data at the next data refresh.
Why do some artists not have a photo?
Vinylsaur tries three sources, in this order: the Wikidata image, then the Wikipedia page image, then a Last.fm photo. If none of these sources have a photo, Vinylsaur shows a placeholder image. Some artists, especially less famous or historical artists, have no photo in any of these catalogs yet.
Why is an album cover or preview clip missing, or looks wrong?
Vinylsaur gets album art from Last.fm, the MusicBrainz Cover Art Archive, and iTunes. Vinylsaur matches album art by album title and artist name. Sometimes a title does not match cleanly between catalogs, for example a reissue title or a "Deluxe Edition" title. When this happens, Vinylsaur shows no cover, instead of a wrong cover.
Is "Today" based on my timezone?
Yes. Vinylsaur reads the date and time zone from your browser. "Today" and "This Week" show your own calendar day, not a fixed server time zone.
Do I need an account? Where are my Favorites saved?
Vinylsaur has no account system. Vinylsaur saves your Favorites only in your browser's local storage, not on the Vinylsaur servers. Your Favorites stay only on the device and browser where you saved them.
If this page does not answer your question, go to the Contact page. To support Vinylsaur, use the Ko-fi link in the footer of every page.