The Echo Nest

The Echo Nest was a music-intelligence company, spun out of the MIT Media Lab, that ran a developer platform and API for music understanding — machine-listening audio analysis (tempo, key, energy, danceability, valence), artist and song metadata, automated playlisting and taste profiles, and the Rosetta Stone service for translating artist and track IDs across music services. It was acquired by Spotify in March 2014 (reported at roughly €49.7M / ~$100M). Spotify consolidated onto its own Web API: The Echo Nest API stopped issuing new keys on 2016-03-29 and stopped serving requests on 2016-05-31, with developers directed to the Spotify Web API (whose audio-features and audio-analysis endpoints descend from Echo Nest technology). The developer.echonest.com portal no longer resolves; the echonest.com domain now redirects to an unrelated WordPress site. This profile was surfaced as a matrix-partners portfolio company; it is retained for historical/lineage reference and has no live, public API surface to enrich.

The Echo Nest is profiled on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include Company, Ai, Music, Music Intelligence, and Machine Learning.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

6.8/100 minimal ▬ flat Agent 0/100 human only Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5

0 APIs

CompanyAiMusicMusic IntelligenceMachine LearningAudio AnalysisRecommendationsAcquiredDefunct

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5

Composite quality — 6.8/100 · minimal

Contract Quality 0.0 / 25

Developer Ergonomics 0.0 / 20

Commercial Clarity 0.0 / 20

Operational Transparency 0.0 / 13

Governance 0.0 / 12

Discoverability 6.8 / 10

Agent readiness — 0/100 · human only

Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 0 / 15

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 0 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/the-echo-nest: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

Source (apis.yml)

aid: the-echo-nest
accessModel:
  pricing: unknown
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Unknown
  confidence: low
  source: []
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/the-echo-nest.png
name: The Echo Nest
description: 'The Echo Nest was a music-intelligence company, spun out of the MIT Media Lab, that ran a developer platform
  and API for music understanding — machine-listening audio analysis (tempo, key, energy, danceability, valence), artist and
  song metadata, automated playlisting and taste profiles, and the Rosetta Stone service for translating artist and track
  IDs across music services. It was acquired by Spotify in March 2014 (reported at roughly €49.7M / ~$100M). Spotify consolidated
  onto its own Web API: The Echo Nest API stopped issuing new keys on 2016-03-29 and stopped serving requests on 2016-05-31,
  with developers directed to the Spotify Web API (whose audio-features and audio-analysis endpoints descend from Echo Nest
  technology). The developer.echonest.com portal no longer resolves; the echonest.com domain now redirects to an unrelated
  WordPress site. This profile was surfaced as a matrix-partners portfolio company; it is retained for historical/lineage
  reference and has no live, public API surface to enrich.'
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/the-echo-nest/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
x-type: company
x-source: vc-portfolio
x-backed-by:
- matrix-partners
x-tier: stub
x-tier-reason: portfolio-lead
x-status: defunct
x-status-reason: acquired-by-spotify-2014; api-retired-2016-05-31; no-live-api-surface
specificationVersion: '0.20'
created: '2026-07-17'
modified: '2026-07-21'
tags:
- Company
- Ai
- Music
- Music Intelligence
- Machine Learning
- Audio Analysis
- Recommendations
- Acquired
- Defunct
apis: []
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
- FN: APIs.json
  email: info@apis.io
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-07-21'
  status: minimal
  artifacts_added: 0
  pass: local-v1