# Issue with getting MusicBrainz data when Album Title contains numbers
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/issue-with-getting-musicbrainz-data-when-album-title-contains-numbers/70231
**Category:** Web Sources Discussion
**Created:** [November 24, 2025, 5:30pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/issue-with-getting-musicbrainz-data-when-album-title-contains-numbers/70231 "2025-11-24T17:30:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@johnfoliot](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/johnfoliot)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2025, 5:30pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/issue-with-getting-musicbrainz-data-when-album-title-contains-numbers/70231/1 "2025-11-24T17:30:13Z")
This is just weird.
_ **IF** _ an album title contains numbers, I keep getting a 400 code error. However, if I remove the numbers (or remove the full title), I can then find the album in MusicBrainz. I have done this with multiple recordings today and I have the same issue.
Build: v3.32c (64 bit)
Video: [https://youtu.be/qsqZ16JkibE](https://youtu.be/qsqZ16JkibE)
---
### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [November 24, 2025, 6:00pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/issue-with-getting-musicbrainz-data-when-album-title-contains-numbers/70231/2 "2025-11-24T18:00:01Z")
This syntax should work for your [Album](https://musicbrainz.org/release/bf41abcd-4da6-466a-be17-4b2b4cfbda04) of Magic Sam:
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### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2025, 10:11am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/issue-with-getting-musicbrainz-data-when-album-title-contains-numbers/70231/3 "2025-11-27T10:11:09Z")
> [@johnfoliot](#):
>
> This is just weird.
Yes.
When presenting the search dialog where you enter the search strings, Mp3tag automatically removes characters that are special characters in the query language of the indexing server that is used by MusicBrainz (cf. [Escaping special characters in Lucene](https://lucene.apache.org/core/10_3_2/queryparser/org/apache/lucene/queryparser/classic/package-summary.html#escaping-special-characters-heading)).
It means that using `\(1937-1969\)` also works as an album name, in addition to the workaround from the previous post.
However, what I don't understand so far is why using plain `1937-1969` doesn't return any result. It also doesn't when using [indexed search on MusicBrainz](https://musicbrainz.org/search?query=1937-1969&type=release&limit=25&method=indexed) directly.
---
### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2025, 1:16pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/issue-with-getting-musicbrainz-data-when-album-title-contains-numbers/70231/4 "2025-11-27T13:16:26Z")
> [@Florian](#):
>
> what I don't understand so far
It seems that the hyphen-minus between the two year numbers will be treated from Lucene as logical operator and means "exclude the following from the result"
If you escape the minus at MB, the encoded [query](https://musicbrainz.org/search?query=1937%5C-1969&type=release&limit=25&method=indexed) seems to work:
`https://musicbrainz.org/search?query=1937\-1969&type=release&limit=25&method=indexed`
---
### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2025, 2:20pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/issue-with-getting-musicbrainz-data-when-album-title-contains-numbers/70231/5 "2025-11-27T14:20:06Z")
The API seems to work differently in that regard:
`1937\-1969` doesn't produce any results
```plaintext
https://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/release/?fmt=json&limit=50&query=release:1937%5C-1969%20AND%20artist:%28Magic+Sam%29
```
Using fully escaped parentheses `\(1937\-1969\)` works
```plaintext
https://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/release/?fmt=json&limit=50&query=release:%5C%281937%5C-1969%5C%29%20AND%20artist:%28Magic+Sam%29
```
and also without escaping the hypen-minus `\(1937-1969\)`
```plaintext
https://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/release/?fmt=json&limit=50&query=release:%5C%281937-1969%5C%29%20AND%20artist:%28Magic+Sam%29
```
---
### Author:  [@LyricsLover](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/LyricsLover)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2025, 3:20pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/issue-with-getting-musicbrainz-data-when-album-title-contains-numbers/70231/6 "2025-11-27T15:20:46Z")
The mentioned syntax "(1937-1969)" works too:
`https://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/release/?fmt=json&limit=50&query=release:"(1937-1969)" AND artist:"Magic+Sam"` or the same API-query [partly enquoted](https://musicbrainz.org/ws/2/release/?fmt=json&limit=50&query=release:%22(1937-1969)%22%20AND%20artist:%22Magic+Sam%22).
Unfortunately, the parantheses around 1937-1969 can not be wildcarded with a `*` or `?`
As far as I know, this is because they are part of the release name (aka "Album") and for the following reason given in the MB [documentation](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Indexed_Search_Syntax#Wildcards):
This "fuzzy search" syntax with added **~0.5** would work without parantheses, but is far from obvious:
Again from the MB [documentation](https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Indexed_Search_Syntax#Fuzzy_searches):
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### Author:  [@Florian](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Florian)
#### Post date: [November 27, 2025, 4:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/issue-with-getting-musicbrainz-data-when-album-title-contains-numbers/70231/7 "2025-11-27T16:26:06Z")
Thanks for the additional information. Unfortunately, I don't see a generic solution to this issue at the moment.
The discussion also shows, that it's not a bug in Mp3tag, but a combination of different syntaxes that need to be applied carefully to get the desired results.
* * *
I'm moving this to #Development > Web Sources Discussion for now.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [December 27, 2025, 4:26pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/issue-with-getting-musicbrainz-data-when-album-title-contains-numbers/70231/8 "2025-12-27T16:26:49Z")
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