ADR-0045: An Artist’s Nth Album, When the Library Does Not Have It, Is the Next of Theirs It Does

Context

“Genesis’ first album” was heard right, twice, and counted right: From Genesis to Revelation, 1969. The owner’s iTunes has it as its reissue, And the Word Was…, and so was asked for a title it has not got. With nothing matched it played the band’s other songs from Abacab, the first by name, which the driver rightly took for a miss; where nothing at all matches, having emptied its queue, it stops. The library cannot be asked what it has (ADR-0040), so a miss is only found by trying.

Options considered

Strict: the album asked for or nothing, and say so. Correct, and in a room it is silence where music was.

The next album the library has: the count goes on, in order, until one plays. “First” becomes “the first of theirs I have”, which in a person’s own room is what was meant.

Decision

For an album asked for by its place, voiced names up to three more of the artist’s studio albums after it, in order; the driver plays the first of them the library has.

• play_album carries instead: up to three album names, by the same artist, at most 200 bytes each. Only voiced’s count fills it; an album asked for by name has none.
• The order is the count’s. For the first or the Nth, the albums after it; for the latest, the ones before it.
• The driver tries each as it tries the first, and stops at the first the player says it is playing. It logs which, or all it tried.
• A command that names alternatives may take longer: twenty seconds in the agent, where a button has five. Each miss is about a second and a half.
• Before the next album, the album’s other names: the titles its releases have gone by in MusicBrainz, most used first, up to three - the owner’s From Genesis to Revelation is its reissue, And the Word Was…. Never one that is the artist’s name, or that begins another of their albums or is begun by one, since the player matches by the start of a title: a reissue called “Genesis” would play the 1983 Genesis.
• A title is matched by its start (ADR-0040 amended): the player is asked for the plain words a title begins with - from its first letter, up to the first that is not a plain letter, digit or space - because it matches characters as they are, and only at the start (“contains” it does not do). MusicBrainz’s “(pronounced ’lĕh-’nérd ‘skin-’nérd)” is asked for as “pronounced” and is the owner’s “Pronounced leh-nerd skin-nerd”. The driver then takes what plays for the album only if its letters and digits, without case or accents, are the title’s, with nothing but an edition’s note after - “(…”, “[…”, “- …”, “…” - so “Van Halen II” is never “Van Halen”, and “Led Zeppelin II (Remastered)” is “Led Zeppelin II”.

Consequences

• What plays may not be the album named, and the device’s light says only that an album was asked for. The log says which played.
• A miss still stops the music, until an album plays or the four are tried.
• An artist the library has nothing by costs eight seconds of trying.

What would settle it

• “Genesis’ first album”, with the library lacking it, plays the next of theirs it has.