diff --git a/whipper/command/main.py b/whipper/command/main.py
index 88af530..04530c3 100644
--- a/whipper/command/main.py
+++ b/whipper/command/main.py
@@ -22,7 +22,14 @@ def main():
     # set user agent
     musicbrainzngs.set_useragent("whipper", whipper.__version__,
                                  "https://github.com/JoeLametta/whipper")
-    musicbrainzngs.set_hostname(config.Config().get_musicbrainz_server())
+
+    try:
+        server = config.Config().get_musicbrainz_server()
+    except KeyError, e:
+        sys.stderr.write('whipper: %s\n' % e.message)
+        sys.exit()
+
+    musicbrainzngs.set_hostname(server)
     # register plugins with pkg_resources
     distributions, _ = pkg_resources.working_set.find_plugins(
         pkg_resources.Environment([directory.data_path('plugins')])
diff --git a/whipper/common/config.py b/whipper/common/config.py
index 4ff75e9..2b7f7cb 100644
--- a/whipper/common/config.py
+++ b/whipper/common/config.py
@@ -21,7 +21,6 @@
 import ConfigParser
 import codecs
 import os.path
-import re
 import shutil
 import tempfile
 import urllib
@@ -78,8 +77,10 @@ class Config:
 
     def get_musicbrainz_server(self):
         server = self.get('musicbrainz', 'server') or 'musicbrainz.org'
-        server_url = server if re.match(r'^\D*//', server) else '//' + server
-        return urlparse(server_url).netloc
+        server_url = urlparse('//' + server)
+        if server_url.scheme != '' or server_url.path != '':
+            raise KeyError('Invalid MusicBrainz server: %s' % server)
+        return server
 
     # drive sections
 
diff --git a/whipper/test/test_common_config.py b/whipper/test/test_common_config.py
index 74f19a0..cdfdbf2 100644
--- a/whipper/test/test_common_config.py
+++ b/whipper/test/test_common_config.py
@@ -84,8 +84,11 @@ class ConfigTestCase(tcommon.TestCase):
         self._config._parser.set('musicbrainz', 'server',
                                  '192.168.2.141:5000/hello/world')
         self._config.write()
-        self.assertEquals(self._config.get_musicbrainz_server(),
-                          '192.168.2.141:5000',
-                          msg='Correctly strips out path after port number')
+        self.assertRaises(KeyError, self._config.get_musicbrainz_server)
+
+        self._config._parser.set('musicbrainz', 'server',
+                                 'http://192.168.2.141:5000')
+        self._config.write()
+        self.assertRaises(KeyError, self._config.get_musicbrainz_server)
 
         self._config._parser.remove_section('musicbrainz')