How the site works

What is emno.nl?

emno.nl is a personal record collection online: the albums from one collection, each with cover, track list and Dutch Top 40 entries and playable on Spotify, the artists of those albums with their members and their hits, a page per track, the playlists Time to Play and Back to the 70's to 20's compiled from the shelves, and the Dutch Top 40 of every week since 1965. Made as a hobby, without ads and without a commercial purpose.

Where does the music come from?

Everything you hear comes from Spotify: every album on the shelves is a playlist on Spotify, and the player at the bottom of the page is Spotify's player. The site stores no music and offers no downloads; to keep an album or playlist, save it in Spotify.

Are the texts opinions or facts?

Facts. Every sentence on the site comes from data: the year of an album from its first release, the hits from the weekly Dutch Top 40 charts, the sound from an analysis of the recording, the line-up of a group from the music databases. There are no reviews, ratings or matters of taste on the site.

Which languages is the site in?

Dutch, English and French. Every page exists in Dutch at its normal address, in English under /en/ and in French under /fr/ with the same path; the NL/EN/FR button in the top bar switches, and the choice is remembered. The names of albums, tracks and artists stay as they are in all languages.

What is on the home page?

The whole collection: 444 albums, at the top as spines side by side (the thickness of a spine follows the number of vinyl sides; pointing at one shows cover, title and artist) and below as covers per category. The buttons above the shelves sort differently: by artist from A to Z, or by release date with the newest year first. At the bottom is Today: which of the artists has a birthday today or was founded, died or disbanded today, and the record that was number 1 today ten to sixty years ago.

Which categories are there?

Each category is a shelf of its own: studio albums, singles, live and unplugged albums, single-artist compilations (such as greatest hits), genres and themes (various-artists compilations), decades (year overviews), soundtracks and seasonal albums. Compilations, decades, soundtracks and seasonal albums have no artist of the moment and sit apart at the bottom when sorting by artist.

What is on an album page?

The cover, the artist, the year and the category, the track list per vinyl side (side A, B and so on, when that layout is known) with the length and the key of each track, a play button per track and for the whole album, the sound of the album (with the calmest and the most energetic track), the tracks that made the Dutch Top 40 with their peak, the line-up of the group in the year of the album, other albums by the same artist and the albums the artist appears on elsewhere. Every title in the track list opens the track page.

Which year is shown for an album?

The year of the first release, not of a reissue. Spotify often gives the date of the newest version (a remaster or deluxe edition); the site therefore takes the year of the original release from the music database Discogs, and otherwise the year of the youngest track on the album. A studio album from 1973 reissued in 2011 is listed under 1973.

What is the track list per side?

The order as it is on the record: sides A and B of an LP, A to D for a double album. That layout comes from Discogs and is laid over the Spotify tracks; where the layout is not known, the list follows the order of Spotify. A track that exists only on vinyl and not on Spotify is listed without a play button.

Who is listed under Artists?

Every artist with an album on the shelves, alphabetically with a button per initial and a search field that filters at once. The buttons above choose what the list shows: the artists with albums, all artists (including those who only play on tracks of other albums, as a guest or on a compilation) and the band members with a page of their own but no album of their own.

What is on an artist page?

A photo and a short summary from the data (origin, founding or birth, the albums on the shelves and the biggest hit), the genres according to Spotify, the official links, the albums in the collection with cover and year, the sound of the artist (tempo, energy, mood, danceable and acoustic, compared with the whole collection), a timeline of the albums and, for a group, of the members with the years they belonged, the five biggest Dutch Top 40 hits with the chart career in numbers and the run of every record, the albums by others the artist appears on, who they share records with, and concert videos where there are any. A member comes with the group, a group with its members.

What is a band member with a page of their own?

A member of a group in the collection without an album of their own on the shelves. That page shows the albums and the Dutch Top 40 hits of the group from the years of their membership, plus their own profile. A drummer, for instance, can be found under his own name even though it is his band that is on the shelves.

What is the difference between an artist page and a Dutch Top 40 artist page?

The artist page (/artist/) is about the artist in the collection: albums, members, sound, the biggest hits. The Dutch Top 40 artist page (/top40/artist/) is only about the chart: every record with which the artist ever made the Dutch Top 40, with the run of each. That second page exists for every artist who ever charted, even without an album on the shelves; the first only for those in the collection.

What is under Tracks?

All 6,638 tracks from the albums on the shelves as a table, per initial of the artist, with the album, the year of release, the length, the Dutch Top 40 peak and the sound of each track. The entry page shows the totals, the initials, the biggest hits on the shelves, the artists with the most tracks and the spread per decade, and has a search field that searches all tracks. A name with an article sits under two initials (The Beatles under T and under B), and a track with more than one artist under the initial of each of them, guests included. On an initial's page a click on a column header sorts and the search field filters at once. Album tracks only: records that only charted do have a track page, but are not in these tables.

What is on a track page?

One page per song, for every track in the collection and every record that ever made the Dutch Top 40. The page shows the title as Spotify knows it, the artists (linked to their pages), a play button, the full Dutch Top 40 career (entry, peak, number of weeks, the week-by-week course as a graph and as a list, the place in the year chart, the decade chart and the all-time chart), the versions on albums on the shelves with vinyl side and length, the sound of the recording (tempo, energy, mood, key), a short note on the artist with the line-up in the year of the song, and a Discover more block with related albums, artists and charts.

Why does a track sometimes have more than one version?

Because the same recording can be on more than one album: a studio album, a greatest hits, a compilation. The track page lists them all, with the side and the length per album. A genuinely different recording (live, acoustic, a remix) is a different track with a page of its own.

What is Time to Play?

A continuous playlist on Spotify that gets a new block every two hours: a random pick from all tracks on the albums on the shelves, with one record from the past week's Dutch Top 40 during the day, matched by sound and fitting the time of day: calmer at night, more energetic in the morning, livelier at the weekend, sometimes tuned to the weather or a holiday. The page shows the current block with the clock time at which each track comes up, and Now and Up next move along with the time.

Why a playlist of its own and not Spotify's shuffle?

Spotify's shuffle is not truly random: in a large playlist the same song kept coming back and others never did. Time to Play picks truly at random from the whole collection, within fixed rules: nobody twice in a block (not even as a member of a group), every record at most once a week, less played tracks a little more chance, and the tracks put in order by sound so the transitions work in tempo, key and energy.

What are Back to the 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's, 10's and 20's?

One playlist per decade with music from those years, compiled the same way as Time to Play but from a different pool: the tracks from those years off the albums on the shelves (by their first release, otherwise the year of the Dutch Top 40 or of the album) plus the biggest hits of the time from the Dutch Top 40: the decade's top 50 and each year's top 10. A new six-hour block every six hours, put in order by sound. The lists are called Back to the 70's, Back to the 80's, Back to the 90's, Back to the 00's, Back to the 10's and Back to the 20's and live under /playlist/.

Can you save a playlist to your own Spotify?

Yes. The Open in Spotify button at the top of a playlist page saves the list to your own library. It remains the same list, which refills itself every two hours (Time to Play) or every six hours (the decades); there is nothing to update.

What does the clock on the playlist page mean?

The clock shows the hour at which the current block started; each track shows the clock time at which it starts within the block. The playing track shows moving bars, played tracks are dimmed. That is the schedule of the block, not your own player: whoever opens the list in Spotify hears it from the start.

What is there of the Dutch Top 40?

Every weekly chart since the very first in 1965 (3,198 charts), with the new one added every week. Per week all forty records with the position, the move since the week before, the number of weeks in the chart and the peak so far; per record the run as a small graph. Besides that an overview per year (the weeks, the number ones, the longest-charting records and the highest new entries) and a year chart with the 100 best records, the 100 best records per decade, the all-time chart, the records, the Dutch Top 40 of the week of a date such as your birthday, and every artist's entries.

How are the year, decade and all-time charts calculated?

On points across all weekly charts of that period: every weekly entry counts 41 minus the position, so 40 points for a number 1 and 1 point for number 40. The record with the most points is on top; with equal points the peak comes first, then the number of weeks. That way a record that stayed mid-chart for a long time counts just as much as a short number 1.

What does the Dutch Top 40 badge next to a track mean?

The peak position of that record in the Dutch Top 40; pointing at it shows the year and the number of weeks. The badge appears wherever a track occurs: in track lists, in the playlist, in the tables under Tracks. A Dutch Top 40 record without an album on the shelves gets a red Dutch Top 40 box in place of the cover in lists.

How does the Dutch Top 40 of your birthday work?

Pick a date and you get the chart of that week: every Dutch Top 40 is dated on a Saturday and runs until the next Saturday, so the chart of your day is that of the Saturday on or before it. This works for every day since 1965.

Why does a Dutch Top 40 record sometimes have a different title on the shelves?

The Dutch Top 40 writes titles and names its own way, Spotify its own: Happy versus Happy (From "Despicable Me 2"), or an artist with and without The. The site links both spellings to the same record and shows the title as Spotify knows it, without additions such as Remaster or Radio Edit. A record not on Spotify keeps the Dutch Top 40 spelling.

What is the sound of a track?

An acoustic analysis of the recording itself, not of genres or opinions. Tempo is the number of beats per minute (bpm). Energy measures how intense and driving a track sounds, from its loudness, timbre and how quickly the onsets follow each other. Mood is the musical positiveness, derived from key, major or minor and timbre: low sounds sombre, high upbeat. Danceable weighs the tempo, the regularity of the rhythm and the strength of the beat. Acoustic says how much of the sound comes from acoustic instruments and voices as opposed to electronic and amplified sounds. The four features run from 0 to 100%.

What is the key?

The root note of the recording with major or minor, such as A minor or F♯ major, from the same analysis. It is shown only when the analysis is confident enough; for a recording with many key changes it is left out.

What do the bars next to an artist or album mean?

The average sound of the tracks of that artist or on that album, one bar per feature, with a mark and a small number for the average of the whole collection. At a glance you see whether an artist sounds more energetic, more cheerful or more acoustic than the shelves on average; the sentence above says the same in words. From five analysed tracks.

What is the sound used for?

The playlists put tracks in order by sound: a track preferably follows one with a related key, a comparable tempo and an energy that does not jump too much, and the block follows the time of day. Beyond that, the sound describes an artist, an album, a Dutch Top 40 year and a track page in the same four features.

How do you play music?

With the round Spotify button next to a track, an album or a playlist. The music plays in the player at the bottom of the page and keeps going while you browse on; the player stays put when you change pages. The first time the site asks for one-off consent, because the player comes from Spotify.

Do you need a Spotify account?

Without an account Spotify's player plays a thirty-second clip per track; anyone logged in to Spotify in the same browser hears the whole track, and with Spotify Premium without ads. The site itself has no account and no login.

How do the concert videos work?

A clip plays on the site itself, via YouTube, after one-off consent. The videos are filmed from the crowd, per concert in the order of the night; every clip has a page of its own with the line-up of that year and, if the song charted, that Dutch Top 40 entry.

How do you search the site?

With the search field in the top bar: it finds albums, artists (also by the name of a band member), Dutch Top 40 artists, tracks from the albums and Dutch Top 40 records at once, with suggestions as you type; the best matches are on top and Enter opens the first. Punctuation does not matter: acdc finds AC/DC. Under Artists and Tracks the search fields on those pages filter at once, and under Dutch Top 40 you find an artist, a year and week, or a date.

Does every subject have one address?

Yes: an album at /album/{artist}/{album}/, an artist at /artist/{name}/, a track at /track/{artist}/{title}/, a Dutch Top 40 week at /top40/{year}/{week}/, a year at /top40/{year}/, a decade at /top40/{decade}s/, a Dutch Top 40 artist at /top40/artist/{name}/, the tracks per initial at /tracks/{initial}/. Pages refer to each other instead of repeating each other's content; an old or deviating address redirects to the one address.

Can search engines and AI assistants read the site?

Yes. Every page starts with a plain-language summary from the data, has a title that says what the page is, and carries structured data (schema.org: MusicAlbum, MusicGroup, MusicRecording, MusicPlaylist, VideoObject, FAQPage and more). There is a sitemap per kind of page and an llms.txt with the structure of the site. Everything is in the HTML itself; there is no content that only appears after a script loads.

How often does the content change?

The Dutch Top 40 gets the new chart every week, the playlists a new block every two or six hours, and the shelves grow when an album is added. Album data, profiles and covers are refreshed from the sources regularly; the sitemaps give the last change per address.

Where does the data come from?

The Dutch Top 40 data from top40.nl. Music data, covers, artist photos and playback from Spotify. The year of first release and the layout per vinyl side from Discogs. Data on artists and their members from MusicBrainz and Discogs. The sound from an acoustic analysis of the recording. The text on the site combines those sources into one story per subject; where sources contradict each other, the one closest to the original release wins.

What if something is wrong?

A wrong year, a missing member, a record linked to the wrong song: it can happen, because everything comes from the sources. A message to the address on the About page is welcome; most errors are fixed with one correction in the admin and show on the site within an hour.

What does the site record about visitors?

As little as possible: a visitor counter of its own without cookies and without personal data, and the language choice when it differs from the default. Spotify and YouTube only see anything when you play music or a video, and only after your consent; that consent can be withdrawn at any time. The Privacy page describes it precisely.