The silent shelf: tracks nobody has played
Licensing costs money, and the catalogue team suspects some songs have never been streamed even once. Before renegotiating with labels they want the exact list of tracks that have zero plays in the plays table.
Task: return title, artist_name and release_year of every track that was never played. Sort by artist_name A to Z, then by title A to Z.
The data you can query
Each table is shown with its column types and the first rows, so you can see exactly what the data looks like.
| artist_id INTEGER | artist_name TEXT | home_country TEXT | genre TEXT |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tobi Adeyemi | Nigeria | Afrobeats |
| 2 | Nala Osei | Ghana | Afrobeats |
| 3 | Neon Hanbok | South Korea | K-Pop |
| 4 | Pixel Orchid | South Korea | K-Pop |
| 5 | Luz de Alba | Mexico | Latin Pop |
| 6 | Rio Caliente | Brazil | Latin Pop |
Showing the first 6 of 16 rows.
| plan_id INTEGER | plan_name TEXT | monthly_price REAL |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Free | 0 |
| 2 | Student | 4.99 |
| 3 | Premium | 9.99 |
| 4 | Family | 14.99 |
| play_id INTEGER | user_id INTEGER | track_id INTEGER | played_at TEXT | seconds_played INTEGER | device TEXT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 15 | 2025-02-10 09:10:00 | 174 | mobile |
| 2 | 11 | 7 | 2025-03-12 11:10:00 | 253 | smart_speaker |
| 3 | 13 | 33 | 2025-03-25 14:26:23 | 140 | desktop |
| 4 | 13 | 13 | 2025-03-25 14:51:34 | 245 | smart_speaker |
| 5 | 12 | 13 | 2025-04-01 12:10:00 | 272 | desktop |
| 6 | 10 | 13 | 2025-04-11 10:10:00 | 272 | smart_tv |
Showing the first 6 of 365 rows.
| sub_id INTEGER | user_id INTEGER | plan_id INTEGER | start_date TEXT | end_date TEXT | status TEXT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 3 | 2025-01-07 | 2025-09-03 | cancelled |
| 2 | 1 | 3 | 2025-11-30 | 2026-01-02 | cancelled |
| 3 | 3 | 3 | 2025-01-20 | 2025-08-23 | cancelled |
| 4 | 5 | 2 | 2025-01-28 | NULL | active |
| 5 | 6 | 4 | 2025-02-02 | 2025-03-27 | cancelled |
| 6 | 7 | 3 | 2025-02-06 | 2025-10-04 | cancelled |
Showing the first 6 of 51 rows.
| track_id INTEGER | title TEXT | artist_id INTEGER | release_year INTEGER | duration_sec INTEGER |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Midnight Lagos | 1 | 2019 | 353 |
| 2 | Golden Highway | 1 | 2024 | 156 |
| 3 | Paper Lanterns | 1 | 2022 | 253 |
| 4 | Neon Rain | 2 | 2025 | 249 |
| 5 | Velvet Satellite | 2 | 2026 | 176 |
| 6 | Broken Harbor | 2 | 2020 | 157 |
Showing the first 6 of 48 rows.
| user_id INTEGER | name TEXT | country TEXT | signup_date TEXT | plan_id INTEGER | birth_year INTEGER |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aarav Iyer | India | 2025-01-07 | 1 | 1998 |
| 2 | Diego Salazar | Mexico | 2025-01-12 | 1 | 1982 |
| 3 | Lucas Almeida | Brazil | 2025-01-17 | 1 | 1976 |
| 4 | Oliver Hartley | United Kingdom | 2025-01-22 | 1 | 1978 |
| 5 | Priya Banerjee | United Kingdom | 2025-01-27 | 2 | 1999 |
| 6 | Jordan Whitaker | United States | 2025-02-01 | 1 | 2006 |
Showing the first 6 of 60 rows.
Your query runs on SQLite. Write a single SELECT; use LIMIT instead of TOP.
Need a hint?
A LEFT JOIN keeps tracks without plays. Look for the rows where the play side is NULL.
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