Amazon shuffle out of classical music

[Mal]

Amazon just allowed Amazon Prime members to listen to all the Music available through Amazon Unlimited! But, and it's a big but for classical music fans, they only allow you to listen in shuffle mode! The casual pop listener may be happy enough - will they really be bothered about listening to the "best of Bowie" album in a different order? Will they be bothered about not being able to pick out "Diamond dogs", but only catch it after listening to several other "best of" songs, or having to make do with "another Bowie"? BUT even the most casual classical listener is going to be miffed about listening to the four movements of a symphony in random order! So, for the classical listener, being limited to a smaller number of recording was a better deal than this "everything with shuffle" deal. Poor show Amazon!

[Dave2002]

Thanks for the alert on this - very poor if that is the case.

[RichardB]

it's a big but for classical music fans

It's a big but for everyone who actually listens to music as opposed to "having it on in the background", and that's not limited to "classical music fans", however you may disdain the attentiveness of people who listen to other kinds of music. Will "they" be bothered? Yes they will. But why subscribe to Amazon in the first place?

[Barbirollians]

It's a big but for everyone who actually listens to music as opposed to "having it on in the background", and that's not limited to "classical music fans", however you may disdain the attentiveness of people who listen to other kinds of music. Will "they" be bothered? Yes they will. But why subscribe to Amazon in the first place?

It is worse than that - they have in effect stolen back music that individuals paid for when they got autorip with the CD they purchased - and sometimes I did that when Presto might have been slightly cheaper and they have taken away My Music - so that if you choose say to play Bach Brandenburg Pinnock as I did this morning - after one movement of it I was then greeted by an encore from a Hilary Hahn album I do not own and do not want to hear.

Ah well I needed a prompt to cancel Amazon Prime - now I have it. Moreover, in my Sonos system I am now playing Brahms PC1 with Curzon/Szell - it was too easy just to go to Amazon on my phone rather than turning on the computer !

[LHC]

It's a big but for everyone who actually listens to music as opposed to "having it on in the background", and that's not limited to "classical music fans", however you may disdain the attentiveness of people who listen to other kinds of music. Will "they" be bothered? Yes they will. But why subscribe to Amazon in the first place?

It's only a year ago that Adele forced Spotify to remove the 'shuffle' option for her latest album as she wanted all the songs to be listened to 'in the correct order' saying “We don’t create albums with so much care and thought into our track listing for no reason ... Our art tells a story and our stories should be listened to as we intended.” So it applies to all music and not just classical.

[Dave2002]

It is worse than that - they have in effect stolen back music that individuals paid for when they got autorip with the CD they purchased - and sometimes I did that when Presto might have been slightly cheaper and they have taken away My Music - so that if you choose say to play Bach Brandenburg Pinnock as I did this morning - after one movement of it I was then greeted by an encore from a Hilary Hahn album I do not own and do not want to hear.

If that is correct - then that is a real shame. I have quite a collection of "tracks" associated with CDs I have bought.

Sadly though, we find Amazon Prime too convenient to cancel.

[richardfinegold]

I dropped Qobuz for Apple Music. I use streaming primarily for background or mobile listening or auditioning CDs, such as when someone on this site recommends a disc. My Qobuz high res service was costing me about $25 month. Apple for my wife and I is $15/month. Besides the savings my wife had gotten very used to the free Apple subscription that came free for 6 months when she bought her iPhone. I tried to get her to adopt Qobuz but she was unhappy and it was easier for me to adapt to Apple than asking her to adjust. Qobuz also worked very poorly when I drove or walked, to the point where I had stopped using it.
Apple sounds acceptable. In the home I mainly use it with Apple TV as background or I Chromecast it from my phone to my streamer for more serious listen. The search engine is equivalent to Qobuz for finding Classical.
I messed with Amazon in the past, since like everyone else I get Prime, but don’t like it. The search engine works but Classical is clearly an afterthought here

[antongould]

Amazon just allowed Amazon Prime members to listen to all the Music available through Amazon Unlimited! But, and it's a big but for classical music fans, they only allow you to listen in shuffle mode! The casual pop listener may be happy enough - will they really be bothered about listening to the "best of Bowie" album in a different order? Will they be bothered about not being able to pick out "Diamond dogs", but only catch it after listening to several other "best of" songs, or having to make do with "another Bowie"? BUT even the most casual classical listener is going to be miffed about listening to the four movements of a symphony in random order! So, for the classical listener, being limited to a smaller number of recording was a better deal than this "everything with shuffle" deal. Poor show Amazon!

I know Amazon has many different subscriptions etc. ….. but we have Prime and I have just asked Alexa to play Prokofiev Symphony 1 and she has played all the right notes/movements in the right order ……..

[Old Grumpy]

It's a big but for everyone who actually listens to music as opposed to "having it on in the background", and that's not limited to "classical music fans", however you may disdain the attentiveness of people who listen to other kinds of music. Will "they" be bothered? Yes they will. But why subscribe to Amazon in the first place?

Yeah, I would have thought the biggest but was Amazon!

[muzzer]

On the subject of subscriptions - apologies I can’t see a specific thread - my TTN listening was disturbed at 6am with a message to the effect that R3, and I assume all BBC streams, will be removed from Sonos’ proprietary radio player next year. Only last week my fave jazz stream WBGO NJ suffered a similar fate.

Obviously, this is all free to me (having bought the Sonos years ago) so I can’t really complain too loudly.

The challenge is to ‘cast’ the available web stream from tablet or app to a proper sized speaker across the room. Any suggestions? Running a cable from the router booster to the speaker isn’t entirely feasible but may be the only option.

[Barbirollians]

On the subject of subscriptions - apologies I can’t see a specific thread - my TTN listening was disturbed at 6am with a message to the effect that R3, and I assume all BBC streams, will be removed from Sonos’ proprietary radio player next year. Only last week my fave jazz stream WBGO NJ suffered a similar fate.

Obviously, this is all free to me (having bought the Sonos years ago) so I can’t really complain too loudly.

The challenge is to ‘cast’ the available web stream from tablet or app to a proper sized speaker across the room. Any suggestions? Running a cable from the router booster to the speaker isn’t entirely feasible but may be the only option.

Really ? BBC Sounds has only recently been added that is why the BBC stations disappeared from Tune in .

[muzzer]

That was the message. It’s been great streaming TTN during the day.

[Mal]

I know Amazon has many different subscriptions etc. ….. but we have Prime and I have just asked Alexa to play Prokofiev Symphony 1 and she has played all the right notes/movements in the right order ……..

I just tried that. Alexa gave a long plug for Amazon Unlimited, then told me I only had Prime, and she was going to shuffle the performance! After spending another chunk of time tellimg me exactly what performance it was (which I quite liked...) she did indeed shuffle it (which I didn't...)

[Mal]

I dropped Qobuz for Apple Music. I use streaming primarily for background or mobile listening or auditioning CDs, such as when someone on this site recommends a disc. My Qobuz high res service was costing me about $25 month. Apple for my wife and I is $15/month. Besides the savings my wife had gotten very used to the free Apple subscription that came free for 6 months when she bought her iPhone. I tried to get her to adopt Qobuz but she was unhappy and it was easier for me to adapt to Apple than asking her to adjust. Qobuz also worked very poorly when I drove or walked, to the point where I had stopped using it.
Apple sounds acceptable. In the home I mainly use it with Apple TV as background or I Chromecast it from my phone to my streamer for more serious listen. The search engine is equivalent to Qobuz for finding Classical.
I messed with Amazon in the past, since like everyone else I get Prime, but don’t like it. The search engine works but Classical is clearly an afterthought here

I messed with a free trial of Amazon Unlimited last month, and am now that's finished have been seeing if I can "live with" Amazon Prime. Until they introduced "shuffle" the day before yesterday, it was a maybe! Now its a definite no-no.

Amazon Music Unlimited now gives prime members CD quality without shuffle for £8.99 a month - £4.99 if you listen through one device. (I think there's also a family option at around £15...)

It might be worth looking at Quboz (& Tidal, etc.,...) range of prices... they may have a CD quality option at about £10 a month (Apple, like Spotify, don't yet have a CD quality option...)

I find Spotify a much smoother & slighty more comprehensive experience than Amazon Music Unlimited. The excellent app & Spotify Connect makes manouvering between all my various devices a doddle. But, for me, getting CD quality streaming on my main system is a priority... so I'm very tempted to plump for Amazon Unlimited's single device option.

[Mal]

Yeah, I would have thought the biggest but was Amazon!

Where else can you get a CD quality stream of 100 million "songs" for £4.99 a month?