Get Artist API is not returning any or all Genres

[jlobb13]

Plan

Premium

Country

US

Device

Macbook

Operating System

MacOS sequoia (Postman Web API)

My Question or Issue

Has anyone noticed any issue with the Get Artist API not returning any genres for an artist, or returning significantly less genres than previously? Is there an ongoing issue with this API, or is there a deprecation of features in the API response? I can't imagine Beyonce (#87 artist on Spotify) has no genres associated to her artist profile. This is impacting an ongoing project being built that uses genre data. This was last working as expected for me around December 2024, but it may have been working more recently, it was just the last time I used this API. As of this week (March 28th 2025) the results appear incorrect.

FYI I am using the Authorization Code with PKCE flow now required for authentication. 

Example 1: No genres returned for Beyonce
API URL: {{url}}/v1/artists/6vWDO969PvNqNYHIOW5v0m

API Response: 

{

"external_urls": {

"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/artist/6vWDO969PvNqNYHIOW5v0m"

},

"followers": {

"href": null,

"total": 39971541

},

"genres": [],

"href": "https://api.spotify.com/v1/artists/6vWDO969PvNqNYHIOW5v0m",

"id": "6vWDO969PvNqNYHIOW5v0m",

"images": [

{

"url": "https://i.scdn.co/image/ab6761610000e5eb7eaa373538359164b843f7c0",

"height": 640,

"width": 640

},

{

"url": "https://i.scdn.co/image/ab676161000051747eaa373538359164b843f7c0",

"height": 320,

"width": 320

},

{

"url": "https://i.scdn.co/image/ab6761610000f1787eaa373538359164b843f7c0",

"height": 160,

"width": 160

}

],

"name": "Beyoncé",

"popularity": 87,

"type": "artist",

"uri": "spotify:artist:6vWDO969PvNqNYHIOW5v0m"

}

Example 2: Less genres returned than before. Previously, this returned genres: ['album rock', 'classic rock', 'mellow gold', 'rock', 'singer-songwriter', 'soft rock', 'yacht rock']. Now it is only returning 1 genre.

API URL: {{url}}/v1/artists/77tT1kLj6mCWtFNqiOmP9H

API Response:

{
"external_urls": {
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/artist/77tT1kLj6mCWtFNqiOmP9H"
},
"followers": {
"href": null,
"total": 2670707
},
"genres": [
"soft rock"
],
"href": "https://api.spotify.com/v1/artists/77tT1kLj6mCWtFNqiOmP9H",
"id": "77tT1kLj6mCWtFNqiOmP9H",
"images": [
{
"url": "https://i.scdn.co/image/ab6761610000e5ebae81417d966e209b735b1160",
"height": 640,
"width": 640
},
{
"url": "https://i.scdn.co/image/ab67616100005174ae81417d966e209b735b1160",
"height": 320,
"width": 320
},
{
"url": "https://i.scdn.co/image/ab6761610000f178ae81417d966e209b735b1160",
"height": 160,
"width": 160
}
],
"name": "Daryl Hall & John Oates",
"popularity": 75,
"type": "artist",
"uri": "spotify:artist:77tT1kLj6mCWtFNqiOmP9H"
}

Any input and experience would be greatly appreciated.

[Ximzend]

Hi @jlobb13 

Thank you for posting in the Spotify Community, and Welcome!

It seems like Spotify is slowly deprecating artist genres.

As an alternative you can use the API from Last.fm

I hope this helps. If you have other questions, the Spotify Community is here to help!

[jlobb13]

Hi Ximzend,

Where is this mentioned, are there any articles about their changes?

It is concerning that they would remove the genres associated to an artist. This seems like a core piece of artist data.

[Ximzend]

Hi @jlobb13 

I could find this tweet from the ex Spotify employee who invented the artist genres.

[jlobb13]

Will anyone from Spotify comment here?