Can’t select content or songs on Amazon music

Just been in touch with Amazon customer service. Not good news I'm afraid.…

Extract from chat below…

Just recently I'm having an issue searching for music tracks on Amazon music when using the Sonos s2 app…. From the Sonos s2 app I used to be able to search for an artist, select ‘top songs’ for that artist and then see a list of tracks that were available for that artist (albeit a restricted list due to the fact I'm not an unlimited member, just prime...). what I'd like to know is, is this a temporary bug or is this a ploy by Amazon to force me down the unlimited subscription route? The main reason I pay for the Amazon prime subscription is for the limited music search feature, if this is no longer available then I may as well stop subscribing to prime, which in turn will probably save me a fortune as a won't be buying as much cr@p that I don't actually need off Amazon…

Amazon Customer Services:

There is actually an update with Prime music and this is part of the update.

We’re bringing a full catalog to customers and delivering playback through shuffle playback, which intermixes the requested content with other similar content.

This is the new listening experience for Prime members, and is now available to them globally where Amazon Music is available.

| Customer Service

10:29

so just to clarify; it's a perminant change to the way Amazon links to Sonos which will not be reverted?

10:32

 | Customer Service

That is correct. This is permanent and we don't have information on when it will be changed 

A

10:34

The main reason I subscribe to prime is because of the limited link to Amazon music from Sonos. If this is not available I may as well cancel my prime subscription... Just to make you aware there are many other prime users saying the same thing on the Sonos community forum. So this Amazon money grab may backfire.....

10:35

| Customer Service

I agree with you

A

10:38

O.k thank you Alyana, I will update the Sonos user group.

10:40

Alyana | Customer Service

I will forward your feedback to our higher department to get this considered. Thank you for your bringing this to our attention.

A

what i find strange is when you use amazon music app. u can hold the play list and click on  View playlist you can see all the song and play what one you like in the amazon music app.

but in the sonos app u cant do this nor can you view the playlsit/album and it only play random tacks when u lick on it.

Yes that's exactly what I'm seeing. I've cancelled my Amazon prime subscription as the best thing about it was the link to Sonos music; without it it's not worth the money. If enough people do the same you never know they might reintroduce the feature… here's hoping!:-)

Hoping… They should warn people before implementing something like this. I’ve been struggling with this for weeks, thought I’d done something wrong. Thanks for this thread. For the time being have switched to Deezer which seems to work the way Amazon did before.

This is bizarre. Basically albums that you own on Amazon become some kind of strange “channel” consisting of some of your purchased content plus other stuff in random order.

If you happened to save tracks in a Sonos playlist, the playlist still appears to work, but there is no way to add new tracks after this change (as far as I can tell).

It isn’t clear that paying Amazon for some extra subscription is even going to fix this problem.

With an Amazon Music Unlimited subscription you can play any album as you wish. You can also edit (add/remove etc) Sonos Playlists

I'm having the issue that I go to play my purchased music on Amazon via Sonos and it plays completely different songs

For example I click on a Take That album The Circus and plays everything but that. It seems to play random songs but weirdly all the songs or Albums it's playing are called The Circus!  Some of the artists it is playing don't have songs or albums called The Circus.  It is doing it to every album. When I play Amazon via earphones the albums are fine

This suggests there is something wrong with the Sonos/Amazon link. Only happened in the last month or so. I've tried changing settings/ reinstalling but doesn't work..  so frustrating!

Amazon changed their service in the last month or so. The issue has nothing whatsoever to do with Sonos, they continue to play what they are handed by Amazon. 

I thought I was doing it wrong: I just got a little Sonos system set up this week and wanted to play my Amazon “Purchased” music though my Sonos system.  I couldn’t find a way to play albums in order (you know, the ones like Goodbye Yellow Brick Road or operas where the tracks connect right to one another, that sort of thing) or without other things getting mixed in.  So I went on to this board and found this appears to be being done on purpose by Amazon.  (I am a Prime member but not a Music member.)

Even when I go to the Amazon Music app on my iPhone, I now see a message that says Amazon is playing the album but shuffling in related content.  So I’m thinking one of two things: either (1) people are paying Amazon to get their content exposed to more people through this shuffling thing or (2) Amazon is deliberately doing something people don’t like in an effort to get them to be a Music member.

So it looks like either:

(1) “I know you ordered peas with your steak but we are going to mix in some carrots with your peas because the carrot growers would like you to know that carrots are awesome too.  If you would like just peas, that’ll be an extra dollar.  Oh, and your dessert will come between your salad and entrée unless you’d like to pay an extra dollar to have it come last.”
or

(2) “I know you ordered peas with your steak but we are going to mix in some carrots with your peas.  If you would like just peas, that’ll be an extra dollar.  Oh, and your dessert will come between your salad and entrée unless you’d like to pay an extra dollar to have it come last.”

I know that Amazon is not a charity but this just feels wrong.  I guess I would prefer them to say “We can no longer afford to do X at the current rates, so we are going to change the price.”  What appears to be shenanigans to trick me to change my behaviour makes me less likely to change than simple honesty.

$0.02
 

@rafeman,  

Shouldn’t you be posting this over on Amazon?  Posting it here is like writing to Samsung’s TV division when you don’t like the latest Netflix release.