Google Music

Come to think of it, I am barely using the over 2200 hours of music I have on my Windows Media Player anymore.

Lurideath wrote:

Do you have to pay for YouTube Music? All this streaming stuff is confusing.

It's free to listen to music you upload. You can upload up to 100,000 songs. If you use it to play music outside of your uploaded library, it will throw in ads every now and then. Unless you pay, of course.

I tried Youtube Music yesterday (my library has been transferred), and I didn't like it as much as Google Play Music.

My biggest gripe is how hard it is to search your own uploaded music. There is no band overview that lists all their albums. If I search for "Rage", knowing there's close to 30 Rage albums there, it gives me the choice "Youtube" or "Uploaded Music" and uploaded music just lists random Rage songs, albums and random other bands' songs with the word "rage" in them. All happily mixed together! I then have to scroll pages and pages until I get to a song from an album I want to hear, and click "go to album".

And clicking "Youtube" brings up Youtube results, which obviously means I get a bunch of Rage Against the Machine etc. The AI doesn't consider I don't like RATM or have any of their music in my library, and that I own every Rage album possible. Nope. Bulls on Parade for you.

Or I could search for the full name of the album, but that's also clumsy. What if I don't know which one I wsnt. And I like the band view in Google Play Music. It's almost like scrolling through your CD collection and picking from there.

It has to be fixed.

Also the first thing you want to do is uncheck "autoplay". Otherwise once your album is done playing, the player starts with random Youtube content. Which in my case means "Hickory Dickory Dock" and other childrens' tunes (I have three small kids). It draws recommendations from viewed Youtube content, which is insane. I don't use Youtube for music so there is hardly any relevant data there to pull from.

So far just using Amazon Music Player. Has everything there that I ever purchased as digital files whether it be a CD or LP purchase. Plus I dumped songs from my iPod over and those play as well. Use my iPod less and less these days. Just easier to use my phone (Android). I keep everything on an SD card so it doesn't use internal memory. Have used Google Music a time or two but it is just easier for me to use Amazon. I do not pay for Unlimited but I do find some good albums on Prime that are free downloads so that's a another reason I use that player.

I also like to use Music Choice (it's those music channels on Cable TV). Sometimes I will stream that in the car from my phone using their app. Tons of channels and it is like listening to the radio but with no commercials and deep cuts. haven't used Spotify in ages.

I got the email from Google inviting me to move my stuff over to YouTube Music the other day.

...but after reading Lari's experience with it thus far, though, I think I'm gonna hold off on making the switch for a while longer.

Transferring your library doesn't take away your ability to use Google Play Music. It just copies what you have over on GPM to Youtube Music, so you can use both.

I okayed the move, but still use GPM.

Lari wrote:

Transferring your library doesn't take away your ability to use Google Play Music. It just copies what you have over on GPM to Youtube Music, so you can use both.

I okayed the move, but still use GPM.

Ahh, OK. How long does the transfer take? I got something like 1100 albums on there. Is it gonna tie up my computer or cell phone all day?

Fat Freddy wrote:

Lari wrote:

Transferring your library doesn't take away your ability to use Google Play Music. It just copies what you have over on GPM to Youtube Music, so you can use both.

I okayed the move, but still use GPM.

Ahh, OK. How long does the transfer take? I got something like 1100 albums on there. Is it gonna tie up my computer or cell phone all day?

It doesn't tie up anything on your end. It doesn't need your PC, just your permission to copy files from one place in the cloud to another place in the cloud.

It does take some time. Days even. But you receive an email once it's all done.

Lari wrote:

It doesn't tie up anything on your end. It doesn't need your PC, just your permission to copy files from one place in the cloud to another place in the cloud.

It does take some time. Days even. But you receive an email once it's all done.

Ahh, I gotcha. OK cool. I'm still in no hurry but I will push that button eventually.

I've noticed that every time I pull up Google Music on my phone now, I get an ad offering me the chance to start transferring everything to YouTube Music. Kind of annoying, haha.

Fat Freddy wrote:

I've noticed that every time I pull up Google Music on my phone now, I get an ad offering me the chance to start transferring everything to YouTube Music. Kind of annoying, haha.

Same here, even though I've already done the full transfer (I just keep using Google music as it's more convenient).

I pushed "the button" to start transferring my stuff from Google Music to YouTube Music today... here goes nothin'.

I did the transfer months ago, but still don't use Youtube Music. I just prefer to use Google Play Music for as long as it's still here.

Lari wrote:

I did the transfer months ago, but still don't use Youtube Music. I just prefer to use Google Play Music for as long as it's still here.

That's what I plan to do. Keep ridin' that horse till it dies.

Same here. I've actually discovered some new bands via the Google Play radio stations as well.

The "transfer" of my library was finished after only a few hours yesterday afternoon, so I guess I'm good to go whenever they pull the plug on Google Music. I poked around with the new app for a little while last night but not long enough to get a real feel for it yet. At least everything I had in the old app seems to be there.

Now when I start up my Google Music app, rather than suggesting I transfer my library like it used to do, I get a screen that reminds me "GOOGLE MUSIC IS GOING AWAY SOON!" and invites me to start exploring my YouTube Music library.... to which I reply "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll get to it dammit. Don't friggin rush me."

Looking at youtube music, it seems to be a Spotify clone, only with the option to add songs from your personal library.

Google Play Music seems to be starting the shut down process ...

I tried to upload some tunes to it this AM and it told me I could no longer do that (and then encouraged me to upload it to my YouTube Music account instead).

I've been fooling around with the YT Music app on and off for the past week or two, figuring I better get used to it for when Google Play goes bye-bye.

I will say it uploads stuff WAY faster than Google Play ever did. It uploaded the album I wanted to add this morning in about 30 seconds. Google Play would sometimes take an hour (or more) to do one album!

However, I am not crazy about how my "library" is arranged in YT Music. The "albums" page is in alphabetical order by album title, which is pretty ridiculous. If I want to listen to an album that starts with "R" I have to scroll, scroll, scroll endlessly to get to the "R's" and then find the album I want? That's gonna get annoying really quick.

I guess I could always sort by artist, but first I am gonna have to see if I can edit the song/artist info on my uploads cuz the "artists" page in my library is an absolute mess.

Even if I have only have one song by a particular artist on a compilation CD, they still get a slot in the "artists" section of my library, so I have to scroll past tons of no-names to find the bands/artists I want. (I'm like "when have I ever said, 'I just gotta listen to that track by 3rd Stage Alert'?") If I could change all those one-shot compilation "artists" to "Various" or something like that, it would cut thru a lot of the B.S.

I have no interest in their "playlists" or "radio" options or whatever other nonsense they offer, I just wanna have access to my personal collection so I can listen to stuff while I'm out walking my dog. Leave it to Google to make that super complicated.

Pretty much nailed my problem with YTM, too. Google Play Music library was just fine. The artist and album views were flawless. Why mess with what is good?!

I never really used Google music. I bought a 1TB card for my player and that works just fine.

Another thing I don't like about YT Music thus far: None of the albums I've uploaded to it over the past three days have cover artwork, and there doesn't seem to be an option to add it myself, like there was on Google Play. I like seeing the album covers in my gallery, dammit. That generic "record album" pic annoys the hell outta my O.C.D.

YouTube Music blows! I've been enjoying the original Google Play Music for years now. It's got a clear and simply layout that's easy to browse. YTM is like the drunk uncle version.

Now I can't use voice commands to play music anymore.

I used go be able to just go "hey google, play Jugulator" anytime in the car, and it would start playing (car stereo via phone bluetooth).

Now it doesn't work. Is life even worth living anymore?

Fat Freddy wrote:

Another thing I don't like about YT Music thus far: None of the albums I've uploaded to it over the past three days have cover artwork, and there doesn't seem to be an option to add it myself, like there was on Google Play.  I like seeing the album covers in my gallery, dammit. That generic "record album" pic annoys the hell outta my O.C.D.

I hate not being able to see the actual album art too. I went the Poweramp route because of the in-app album art option.

What's Poweramp?