A slightly more readable version might be:

my $inLine = "RPC, rpc #001b, (1987)";

my ($year) = $inLine =~ /\((\d+)\)/;
die "No year found in '$inLine'\n" unless defined $year;
[download]

The reason for checking definedness is because of the potential for an erroneous year zero. (You might want to die on year 0 ... I dunno.)

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