If you are searching by album, the results will always list as Music Library first followed by your added music services in alphabetical order. There is no way to change this other than removing music services that you rarely use so they will be excluded from the results.

What order would you like to see it listed as?

I typically search by artist, get the top level results as you’ve suggested.  When I then click into the artist on Apple Music for example, the albums shown appear random.  It would be sensible (to me) to have most recent albums at top, but as not all may feel the same it probably makes sense to have a toggle there to control the order.  For that matter, some may want to see alphabetically, others by newest/oldest etc.

As an very specific example, let’s say I search artists for ‘James Blake’.  I then choose James Blake on Apple Music.

Looking at the results, his most recent album ‘Friends that Break Your Heart’ appears 5 times. One is listed as ‘explicit’, but there’s nothing whatsoever to distinguish the others.  Despite being the newest album, it appears in the middle of others.  it’s therefore not in chronogical order, nor alphabetical.

It would even be an improvement to see a ‘list’ view with some details rather than just a series of album covers with no detail.  It’s simply impossible to navigate as it stands.

Once into the individual service's listing, the order is up to the service.  Each service uses the Sonos API to implement their UI in the Sonos app, and it is they who are in charge of the look and feel.  Lobbying Apple for a change is your only choice, Sonos couldn't change the search results order if they wanted to.

I really doubt Sonos has no control over how they present data in their own app.

That’s fine. Sonos chooses not to modify the data that they receive from the outside service, so it is represented in exactly the way that each service sends it. 

Doubt all you like.  Matter of fact, keep complaining to Sonos instead of Apple, and watch how soon it gets fixed.  Or you can actually believe someone who has been answering questions here for over a decade and complain someplace where it will do you some good.

I'm simply saying I find it hard to imagine that the iOS SDK doesn't provide a means for Sonos to sort the output of data being returned to them.

Beyond that, Sonos is a fraction the size of Apple. Therefore which company has a better chance of being influenced to improve their product? Asking Apple to change some API being accessed by Sonos is like shouting at the sky.

As stated, Sonos allows the services to design their own user interface via the Sonos Music API, there is no Apple API to change.  Sonos does nothing except supply their API and QA testing.  Everything else is done by the service themselves, including how search results are displayed.  This is part of the partnership between Sonos and the services, and Sonos couldn't change it if they wanted to.

I'm sorry but that makes no sense. Sonos has written the Sonos application for iOS using apple's development tools. That application undoubtedly calls an Apple music API to get information from the Apple music service. It's just data… It can be manipulated and displayed like any data from any service.

Even if what you're saying were true, the data being displayed for Apple music doesn't match the order it's displayed in the Apple music app… Not even close.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/applemusicapi

I gave you the manner in which you can get your complaint fixed.  What you do with that is your business, and personally, I will now go help someone else who would rather fix their problems than argue with the people whom they came to for help.  Good luck finding a solution, because it’s pretty obvious you’ve rejected the one given to you by people in the know.  ​​​​​​

Yep, makes perfect sense.. go ask Apple to fix the Sonos app.  

And now we know why the Sonos app never really improves. Why even have a community forum?!

https://developer.sonos.com/build/content-service-get-started/

Note: The Sonos app displays the search results in the order you specify in the presentation map. In the example above, the results for SEARCH_USER_CONTENT will be displayed above the results for SEARCH_GLOBAL_CONTENT.

The bolded ‘you’ is the developer, which in this case is Apple. 

As explained, the Sonos app doesn’t call the Apple music API.   The call for search results is using Sonos API.  Regardless, Sonos could obviously modify those results if they wanted to, but isn’t doing that for some good reasons.

Most important, it gives the service provider peace of mind to know that Sonos won’t modify the returned search results in anyway.  The service can send the data how they want it to be displayed (alphabetical, most recent, most played, kickback from the record compaines...etc).  That could even be by the preferece a user setup with the service.

Because it’s not using the Apple Music API.  But it’s not uncommon for services to put less care into the coding for the interface with Sonos.  Apple and others would surely rather everyone use their APIs rather than manage everyone elses.  Sonos can’t really do that since it would limit the number of services they can connect to due to hardware constraints. 

Oh, and the app itself isn’t doing the searching as I understand it, it’s the speakers, hence the limits of hardware.  This is because Sonos was created before smartphones were a thing, and it because it allows you to use third party software through the APIs without reliance on a Sonos app.

I’d think, technically, the speaker isn’t doing the search either….it’s just passing the request on to the streaming company, and their server does the actual ‘search’ and feeds back the result to Sonos.  But I’ve never peered into Sonos’ code base, it just seems logical that the Sonos device or controller doesn’t have access to the entire server in which it needs to execute the search.