Contributor II

How to play single artist through Sonos App

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
April 6, 2020
7 replies
2793 views

So let’s say you want to play all songs of a particular artist without the pain of creating a playlist? In iTunes you simply search Apple Music for the artist and click on the red play button and boom - all songs play. You can also simply tell HomePod play X artist and again, it just plays some of their music.

However, when you go into Sonos App and search for artist and then play, you get a playlist of like artists and songs no matter which music service you select (Apple Music, Amazon, Pandora, or Spotify). Or worse, you have to select one album at a time to listen.

Is there an alternate way of doing this?

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buzz

Grand Maestro

Which controller are you using? In the Windows Desktop controller you can use the <Shift> and <Ctrl> keys to select multiple items from the list.

controlav

Lead Maestro

Each Service does this differently, or not at all. From the PC controller:

Spotify Artist search gets you <Artist> Radio and Top Tracks.

Apple Music gets you no such option

Amazon music offers Top songs and <Artist> Station

etc. Some of these decisions are technical, some artistic, and some legal.

Author of the leading independent Sonos apps for Android, MacOS, iOS, Windows and Xbox.

B

BearCandyAuthor

Contributor II

Thanks for the quick response! I am using Mac on my desktop and Sonos app on iPhone. I always keep the versions updated to the most recent. I guess I am just frustrated that iTunes offers the UX I describe but I can’t use it via Sonos. Further, can’t get it to work via any service. And I can’t Airplay because none of my speakers (thousands of dollars spent) don’t support AirPlay2. Frustrating.

Airgetlam

In your other thread, you indicated that you had a pair of Sonos Ones, which support AirPlay 2.

Bruce

B

BearCandyAuthor

Contributor II

Yup, and those are being with a playbar as part of my surround which makes them unavailable to use with Airplay. These Ones are black and attached to black stands in the living room whereas the Play 1’s in the bedroom are white. I just think it is tacky to put white speakers on black stands so swapping them is not an option.

but the bigger point:

go to iTunes to start playing music

then go to Sonos to group speakers

The thing that really has me seething is that I put down the money for the new black Ones because Sonos said they were Airplay compatible. What they neglected to state anywhere on the product description was the nuanced way it supports it and doesn’t. Again, makes me want to dump all of them in a dumpster as this is planned obsolescence- plain and simple. This is how companies lose customers.

buzz

Grand Maestro

Favorite user interface is personal. While the Apple style of music player user interface is very popular, I find it to be unbelievably cumbersome and I absolutely will not use it. For some users iPad/iPhone is the source of their music. I have an iPad that is required for my work, but the only music stored on the iPad is whatever was installed at the factory. Thankfully, there are alternatives to the Apple music player user interface.

AppleTV through PLAYBAR might be an option for you. (Full disclosure: I’m not an AppleTV user and cannot comment on any user interface subtleties)

B

BearCandyAuthor

Contributor II

Thanks for the reply, but gross - I shouldn’t have to navigate between multiple devices and apps to simply play a song. Defeats the entire point of having Sonos.

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