UKH

Any other Amazon Prime Music users out there? If so what do you think of this weeks "improvements" to the service?

I started subscribing to Prime it must be a decade ago for the quick and free delivery, and only discovered the Prime Video and Prime Music after that. But we've come to use Prime Video quite a lot (as a family we were late to subscribing to Netflix probably because of it), and without really meaning to I've used Prime Music quite a lot, and never felt the need to subscribe to Spotify or similar as result.

Of course I knew that there were lots albums and tracks that weren't available on Prime, and occasionally some album I did listen to would go off Prime, but there was plenty of 90s indy and EDM and weirder more recent 'background to work weird electronica' to keep me happy. But now the "improvements"! You can listen to one track that you actually want to, then it randomly shuffles on to something you don't want to listen to! How am I meant to relive my glory days of youth listening to Ned's Atomic Dustbin or Orbital albums when getting on with late night exam marking sessions?! 

Does anyone think it is an improvement? Am I doing something wrong or missing something?

It's absolutely awful. If I search for a song, don't pretend I can listen to it and then play something completely different.

any good recommendations on prime video before my latest trial expires?

It definitely seems odd. I only use it occasionally (mostly buy stuff from bandcamp) but saw the update and thought I would start using it more with all the music before reading a bit more, then rereading it, before thinking that sounds crap.

Have you tried the playlists since I think more of them are available and might restrict it down to music in a genre you like vs any old crap.

I trialled Amazon HD during lockdown. It only ever played music that I selected.

Is this a different service? Because if I were paying for Amazon HD and it started playing stuff I hadn't asked for (unless I had told it to random play), I'd be looking for another service.

I think it's pretty poor in general. I only started using it when Google Music became YouTube music and I didn't enjoy it.

Since I already had a Prime subscription I gave Prime Music a shot. I find it usable and there's an okay range of stuff but it's frustrating when you see that MusicUnlimited icon next to something you're after. 

Having just changed phones I'm in the process of trying to reassemble my downloaded library and playlists. An unenjoyable process.

The Boys, but only if anti hero with a lot of violence appeals to you.

Currently I'm mainly using it to binge re-watch The West Wing - very much part of 90s (in this case late 90s/early 00s) nostalgia as I head inexorably towards 50! Oh, if only the Americans had elected (completely fictional) President Bartlett and his teams of quick talking, wise-cracking but solidly level-head and kind hearted advisors - how wonderful the world would be now!

I do actually have a half decent excuse for this nostalgic wallowing, I teach A level Politics and big part of that is US politics. I've been trying to get (with some success) my students to watch it because it is really rather good on letting you see stuff like constitutional limitations on the executive, executive - legislative relations, the role of special interests and lobbying etc. etc.

Otherwise, whatever decent films came out recently that I never got chance to see at the cinema, since my cinema viewing collapsed over the last 18 years since child 1 was born!

I don't even know what that is?

Cheers

Toby

I noticed the shift. I was always amazed by how good the music service was considering it's just a side-arm of Prime. When they crippled it the other day I wasn't really surprised, disappointed but not surprised. 

Until I got the email telling me how they've massively improved the service. That pissed me off. 

As far as I can tell, they want you to cough up some more money to enjoy the premium service - or whatever it's called - presumably being able to play albums as albums is still available on that.

The basic AP music service has been emasculated - what's even "funnier" is the algorithm it uses to find random similar music - like if it has "remastered" in the title you'll then get an endless stream of remastered tracks with absolutely no musical similarity to your original choice. Or find a track with a popular name and see how many other artists have a track of the same name - not a cover of the same music, just the same name.

At least I didn't get annoyed by the email - goes to my son.

I don’t like it.
Even basics of allowing a album to be listened to but then only allowing you to listen to tracks in the random order they choose, not being allowed to skip tracks (sometimes only forward not back and sometimes not at all), replay ones you like, etc, etc. unless you upgrade is just frustrating. I certainly won’t be using it much and I wouldn’t be paying for upgrade.

I’m not sure how many customers they will lose though overall if some like me only got it as it was essentially free along with the paid for Prime delivery side. Maybe I’ll just stop the whole of Prime as I have infrequently used it in recent past to buy anything from Amazon. That said I have been known to use the Prime video; been realistic that could be changed as well in the (near) future?

I am surprised by how many people appear to pay money for Amazon Prime. What's the attraction?

For me when I started, it was for the delivery, though I have used the video/tv side in recent years to “justify” to myself the overall cost. I don’t subscribe to any other tv steaming (if you don’t count BBC licence). Now, I am thinking of stopping as it’s only the video/tv side I really use.

Edit: the Prime also includes iirc unlimited full resolution photo storage. That is worth a lot if used and could be more than the fee?

It's the high definition version of Amazon Music. Now seems to be called Amazon Music Unlimited HD.

Further to my earlier post: I just updated the app. Fizzing to see the pop-up stating that "previously downloaded is no longer available". It at least looks like I can still download and listen to the handful of albums I've bought. (Which I need to do again having just done it yesterday).

Any recommendations for a standalone, play music from my memory card apps anyone?

Same day/next day delivery for pretty much anything you need. High quality movies, TV shows etc. Free catalogue of music (up until now). For £6.99 a month.

Samsung Music is a good app if you're on Android. I don't know if you need a Samsung specifically though, it's on the play store for me. It works like an iPod interface

It's horrible isn't it? Used to be great for downloading an album, or making a playlist. Now it's just one decent track and random nonsense. It's simply a ruse to extract more money from the user. (Strava has pretty much moved all the free features to Premium too, but I'll cut them some slack as they're not funding a private space programme on the back of it).