Artists: Browsing, Playing & Managing
Tap any artist card in the Artists view to open the Artist Focus modal — a full-screen panel dedicated to that artist, with their albums, songs, biography, and member information.
The Artist Focus Modal
[SCREENSHOT: Artist Focus modal — hero section with artwork, name, genre chips, shuffle button]
Hero Section
The top of the modal shows:
- A blurred version of the artist’s representative album art as a background
- A circular artist photo (same art, unblurred)
- Artist name
- Album and song counts
- Origin and formed year chips (when available from the artist database)
- Active / disbanded status chip
- Genre tags
- Shuffle All button
Tabs
Three tabs organize the artist’s content:
| Tab | Contents |
|---|---|
| Albums | All albums by this artist in your library |
| Songs | Every individual track, numbered, with album name |
| About | Biography, members, past members, notable albums, and trivia facts |
The About tab only appears when artist biography data is available. See Artist Metadata below.
Playing Music
Tap any album in the Albums tab to start playing that album from track 1 and close the modal.
Tap any song in the Songs tab to shuffle all of the artist’s tracks and jump to that specific song.
Tap Shuffle All in the hero to shuffle the entire artist catalog and start playing immediately.
The About Tab
[SCREENSHOT: About tab — biography, members, notable albums list]
When artist metadata is available, the About tab shows:
Biography — A summary of the artist’s history. Tap “Read more” to expand the full biography if available.
Members — Current band members, displayed as chips.
Past Members — Former members, shown in a dimmer style.
Notable Albums — A list of the artist’s most significant albums with release years. Albums that are in your library are shown with their artwork and a ▶ play button — tap them to start playing. Albums not in your library are shown dimmed.
Did You Know? — Curated trivia facts about the artist.
Artist Metadata
Artist biographical data (bio, members, genres, origin, notable albums) comes from Homecrate’s curated artist database, fetched when you first open an artist’s page.
Refreshing Metadata
Tap the ↺ refresh icon next to the artist name to check for updated information.
[SCREENSHOT: Refresh icon next to artist name]
- Tap — Compare what’s stored locally with the server. If there are differences, a preview sheet shows what would change so you can review and approve before applying.
- Long-press — Force a fresh fetch from the server, bypassing the local cache.
If the comparison finds no differences, you’ll see “Up to date”.
If changes are found, the Metadata Update Preview sheet shows each field that differs — you can approve or dismiss individual changes before they’re applied.
[SCREENSHOT: Metadata Update Preview sheet — showing diff items with checkboxes]
Managing Artists
Set Up Next
Long-press an artist card in the Library → Set Up Next to shuffle all of their tracks into the Up Next queue immediately.
Omit from Recommendations
Long-press an artist card → Omit from Recommendations to exclude this artist from AI-generated playlists and shuffle. Useful for artists you own but don’t want contaminating recommendations (e.g. children’s music, audiobooks).
Reset Analytics
Long-press → Reset Analytics to clear all listening history for this artist. Their play counts, skip rates, and listening time reset to zero. This affects recommendations and the analytics dashboard.
Merge Artists
If the same artist appears under two different name spellings (e.g. “The Beatles” and “Beatles”), you can merge them. See Merging Artists.
Delete
Long-press → Delete to remove all tracks by this artist from your library. This cannot be undone.