Rolling Stone Charts Scraper

Rolling Stone Charts Scraper

Scrape any official Rolling Stone chart, from the Top 200 Albums to the Artists 500, with data points for every entry. Pull the latest rankings or a specific historical week, up to a million rows per run.

Rolling Stone publishes authoritative music charts that are a primary source for industry analysis, but manually tracking chart movements across weeks is tedious. This actor reads the public chart pages directly, so you get every entry's rank, artist, title, label, and movement indicators in one consistent dataset. No API key or complex setup is required.

Who uses it	What they scrape Rolling Stone for
Music journalists	Reporting on which albums and songs are climbing the charts this week.
Record label A&Rs	Spotting breakout artists on the Trending 25 or Breakthrough 25 charts.
Data analysts	Building a time series of chart positions to model an act's career trajectory.
Playlist curators	Identifying the most popular tracks on genre-specific charts like Latin or Country.

What it does

This Actor collects chart entries from a selected Rolling Stone chart and returns each one as a flat row with its rank, movement, and metadata.

• 🎯 Nine chart types: Top 200 Albums, Top 100 Songs, Artists 500, Trending 25, Breakthrough 25, and genre leaders for R&B/Hip-Hop, Country, Latin, and Rock.
• 📅 Historical week replay: Supply a specific week date (YYYY-MM-DD) to pull rankings from past charts, or leave it blank for the latest published results.
• 📊 Movement indicators: Each entry shows its rank change from the previous week, indicating which titles gained or lost positions.

Results export to CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML, or straight from the API.

What you can do with Rolling Stone data

📈 Monitor chart movements.

A music journalist runs the Actor weekly with the Top 100 Songs chart to write a column about the biggest leaps and drops each week.

🎤 Find the next breakout act.

An A&R researcher scrapes the Breakthrough 25 chart to compile a weekly report of new artists gaining traction for their label head.

📊 Analyze historical trends.

A data scientist runs the Actor for the Top 200 Albums chart across multiple years to study how major label market share has shifted over time.

🌎 Track genre popularity.

A playlist editor scrapes the Top 100 Latin Songs chart to ensure their streaming platform's flagship playlist reflects the current top tracks.

Why choose this scraper

	What you get
No authentication	Scrapes public chart pages without logins, API keys, or OAuth flows.
Historical data	Retrieve any archived chart by its week date for longitudinal studies.
Fixed schema	Every entry returns the same fields, ready for CSV, JSON, Excel, or XML export.

How it compares

No other Store actor targets Rolling Stone the same way, so the honest comparison is with the alternatives teams actually weigh.

	Rolling Stone Charts Scraper	Build it in-house	By hand
Setup	Run it now, zero config	Days of engineering	None, but hours per pull
When Rolling Stone changes	Maintained for you	You fix it	You re-learn the page
Proxies, retries, anti-bot	Built in	Your problem	Browser only
Output	Fixed JSON schema, CSV/Excel export	Whatever you build	Copy-paste
Cost	Pay per result	Engineering time	Analyst hours

Configure the run

Drive the Actor by selecting a chart name and, optionally, a historical week date. Filters run as each entry is read so you get only the data you requested. The Input tab lists every parameter.

A first run with the defaults:

{
  "chart": "top-200-albums",
  "maxItems": 10
}

A larger pull:

{
  "chart": "top-200-albums",
  "maxItems": 200
}

Pricing

Pay-per-result: $0.0085 per result collected. You pay only for the results written to your dataset.

Results collected	Approximate cost
100 results	$0.85
1,000 results	$8.50
10,000 results	$85.00

New Apify accounts start with $5 in free credit.

Free users

Free-plan runs return up to 10 results as a preview. Upgrade your Apify plan to collect up to 1,000,000 results per run.

Run it

1. Create a free Apify account with $5 in credit.
2. Open the Rolling Stone Charts Scraper.
3. Set your inputs and any filters, then click Start.
4. Export the results as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML from the Dataset tab.

Run it programmatically through the Apify API (run-sync-get-dataset-items) or the ApifyClient for JavaScript and Python.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

Give an AI agent live access to Rolling Stone through the Model Context Protocol. Add the Actor to Claude, Cursor, or any MCP client:

claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=parseforge/rollingstone-charts-scraper"

Then prompt it in plain language to run the scraper and read back the results.

Troubleshooting

Why am I getting no results?

Check the 'Week date' field. An invalid date or a week that wasn't published will return no data. Try running it with the date field empty to confirm the latest chart works, then verify the date format as YYYY-MM-DD for historical pulls.

The actor run takes too long.

Reduce the 'Maximum chart entries' value. The Top 200 Albums chart is faster to scrape with a cap of 50 rather than the full list. You can also set a lower timeout in the run options if you only need the top few entries.

I see an error related to the website.

The Rolling Stone site structure can change, which may break the scraper. Retry the run after a few minutes. If it persists, check the actor's issue tracker or support channel for any ongoing updates.

The movement data is missing or blank.

Movement values like 'rank change' are not always present for every entry, especially for new or re-entered items on the chart. This is normal and reflects what is shown on the official chart page.

FAQ

Question	Answer
Which charts can I scrape?	You can choose from nine Rolling Stone charts: Top 200 Albums, Top 100 Songs, Artists 500, Trending 25, Breakthrough 25, and four genre-specific charts covering R&B/Hip-Hop, Country, Latin, and Rock.
How do I get data from a specific week?	Enter a date in the 'Week date' input field using the YYYY-MM-DD format, for example 2023-01-20. If you leave the field empty, the actor will automatically scrape the most recent chart.
What information comes with each chart entry?	Every row includes the current rank, the artist and title name, the record label, the movement from last week's position, and the peak position achieved.
Is an API key or login required?	No. This scraper reads the publicly accessible chart pages on the Rolling Stone website. You do not need to register for an API or provide any login credentials.
Can I limit how many entries I scrape?	Yes, the 'Maximum chart entries' field lets you set a number between 1 and 1,000,000. It caps the results after that count is reached, helping you control output size and run time.
How do I export the scraped data?	You can export your dataset into multiple formats, including CSV, JSON, Excel, and XML. This is done from your run's Dataset tab in the Apify Console.
How often is the chart data updated?	The scraper fetches whatever is live on the Rolling Stone site at the moment you run it. Charts are typically refreshed weekly by the publisher, so running the actor weekly will keep your data current.
Can I scrape all nine charts in one run?	The input configuration accepts one chart type per run. To collect data for multiple charts, you can run the actor multiple times with different chart selections or queue them in a sequence.
Does this actor download the actual songs or albums?	No, it only extracts the metadata from the chart page, such as rank, title, artist, and record label. It does not download or provide links to audio files.
What happens if I request a date that has no chart?	If the specified week date does not correspond to a published chart, the actor will likely return an empty dataset. Always verify the date format and check the Rolling Stone site for available archives.

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🆘 Need help? Email parseforge@protonmail.com with your run ID, your input, and what you expected.

⚠️ Disclaimer. This Actor is unofficial and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Rolling Stone, LLC. It collects only publicly available data. You are responsible for using the collected data in compliance with the source's terms of service and applicable data-protection laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and PIPL. Do not use it to collect personal data unlawfully.