Musicbrainz query case sensitive?

Question

I'm running a Java application that queries the Musicbrainz database for info and I ran into a peculiar problem. The query that my application builds (using java.net.URL.URL) is as follows:

http://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/recording?query=%22Gilt+Complex%22+AND+artistname%3A+%22Sons+And+Daugthers%22

The above query returns an empty response:

<metadata xmlns="http://musicbrainz.org/ns/mmd-2.0#" xmlns:ext="http://musicbrainz.org/ns/ext#-2.0" created="2018-04-25T14:25:36.224Z">
  <recording-list count="0" offset="0"/>
</metadata>

However, if I change the AND to lower case, the query works properly:

http://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/recording?query=%22Gilt+Complex%22+and+artistname%3A+%22Sons+And+Daugthers%22

returns:

<metadata xmlns="http://musicbrainz.org/ns/mmd-2.0#" xmlns:ext="http://musicbrainz.org/ns/ext#-2.0" created="2018-04-25T14:25:36.224Z">
  <recording-list count="526823" offset="0">
    ...
  </recording-list>
</metadata>

The same thing happens if I copy&paste the queries into Chrome. This hasn't happened to me with other songs yet. Can anyone explain what is going on here?

You spelled Daughters wrong. The first query is correct, in that no album with the artist name incorrectly spelled can be found. The second query actually finds albums titled "And" in addition everything else attached to the query. — Compass, Apr 26 '18 at 20:01
Ah, that explains it. Can you post this as an answer so I can accept it? — Mate de Vita, Apr 26 '18 at 20:06

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 26 '18 at 20:08

The query is case-sensitive, in the essence that "AND" as a keyword is in all caps. Your first query returns no results, because:

"Gilt Complex" AND artistname="Sons and Daugthers" has no results.

Your second query has several hundred thousand results because it is translated into:

"Gilt Complex" OR and OR artistname="Sons and Daugthers"

The last term in the query doesn't apply to anything and is simply an exclusion. Searching only for "and" in this case yields 526821 results, which matches what we observed earlier.

Musicbrainz query case sensitive?

1 Answers1