Artist -> album searching

  • 21 February 2018
  • 22 replies
  • 2659 views

Userlevel 2
I allways browse by artist and then their albums in ordor of when they came out. Suddenly I have to scroll down a couple of hunderd albums because every album the artist appears on is shown by release date aswell. Can you please revert to the previous way of album listing when the appear on albums where below the original artist releases?
It is verry anoying and i have had to swich to the spotify app, I prefere the sonos app but I am not going to scroll through a list of hunderds of albums for that one I wanted but couldnt remember the name of.

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22 replies

Userlevel 5
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Which controller? Artist->Album browsing still works fine on desktop and mobile, whether browsing local library or Spotify. Pick the artist, then browse their albums. Sorting by release date is a little tricky, because:
1. For local library, Sonos only stores a subset of tagging info, and doesn't read the "year" field
2. For Spotify, searching via Sonos seems to have its own order, which isn't always a strict "reverse chronological"
I noticed the same thing with the Sonos Android app and Spotify.
In Spotify the order is Albums, Singles, Compilations, Appears On.
Now when I browse the artist in Sonos the Appears On is mixed in with the Albums. This seems to be a recent change and really clutters things up.
Screenshots attached.
I asked @sonossupport and they said "While we're not aware of any changes, it's possible that Spotify has updated how their search results are displayed based on the available metadata. If you have any feedback on search results, we'll be happy to pass it along to our team for review."
Compare to Tidal, where after selecting the artist you can choose most popular tracks, own albums, EP&singles, and other albums. I like it this way.
I am having the same experience as EarlG on the IPhone App.

This change makes Spotify nearly unusable to me. Browsing the artist by their main albums is the primary way I use Spotify.

Will probably cancel my subscription if this doesn’t sort it self out soon. Surely this must be an unintended consequence of some change Spotify made right? They can’t actually think that anyone would want to browse Radiohead (for example) that way - I mean it is useless noise hiding the artist’s main albums - so lame!
Userlevel 5
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So doing a Spotify search on Sonos desktop, or a Search->Artists and picking the artist under the listed Spotify artists on both the iPad and iPhone clients seems to be working. Spotify's order isn't necessarily perfect, but it's artist->album browsing. Spotify desktop app does the reverse-chronological album listing when you search by artist.

Maybe you're the unlucky participants in a Spotify A/B test, unless Spotify somehow vary things on an artist-by-artist basis.
Userlevel 4
Badge +2
I am having this issue as well. It is a recent change. EarlG pinpointed the issue above, which is that the "Appears on" section of spotify is now being included in albums. It introduces a ton of noise into the album view, and in the case of more popular artists, makes it really hard to find what you're looking for. eg, on bruce springsteen's column, there are seven compilations listed before his most recent album.

It is this way in the sonos desktop and android mobile app.

Album view still works in the spotify app, it would be nice to have Sonos back to the way it was.
This started happening for me a couple of days ago on the Android app. The album results list is now garbage.
Userlevel 4
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Yeah, it's a terrible change. Hopefully it's an easy fix. The spotify app still lists it normally, so you'd imagine that information exists somewhere. Here's what sonos twitter support had to say:

"We appreciate you notifying us about this. We are aware of this change and we're currently looking into it. We don't have a timeline to offer, but we'll let our team know that you would like to see the search behavior changed. Please let us know if anything else comes up that we can help with."
I am experiencing this mess with Apple Music searches by artist as well as Spotify through the Sonos iPhone app. It really makes searching for an artist’s albums a Herculean task.
Well, I've just done the latest update (28 Feb) of the Sonos android app and it hasn't fixed this problem.

Just done an artist search and the first instance of an actual album by them was TWENTY EIGHTH in the list, the rest was compilations and other garbage.

This is of no use to me, and NOT the service I would expect from Sonos.
Well, I've just done the latest update (28 Feb) of the Sonos android app and it hasn't fixed this problem.

Just done an artist search and the first instance of an actual album by them was TWENTY EIGHTH in the list, the rest was compilations and other garbage.

This is of no use to me, and NOT the service I would expect from Sonos.
Userlevel 5
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I'd assume the problem is with the Spotify API. Although, wouldn't explain Spotify clients doing a better job of searching than their APIs. That said, if the meta-data for "Artist" and "Album Artist" exists and is correct, Sonos presumably could fix the incoming search order.

(Did a test search for "Rush", and their large catalog is reverse-chronological-by-release-date in Spotify desktop, random-and-buried with a Spotify search in Sonos).
Same problem, I’ve just searched on Spotify through Sonos for Marvin Gaye.
I counted 300 compilation albums before the fist studio album appears....
The Spotify App still displays albums properly, so this appears to be a SONOS issue, not a Spotify issue. I agree, this is really annoying. If i search an artist, I don't want to scroll through a hundred random compilation albums just to find the artist's full length albums. Clearly, the SONOS staff don't actually use their own products if they don't see this as an issue!
Userlevel 7
Badge +20
The Spotify App still displays albums properly, so this appears to be a SONOS issue, not a Spotify issue.
Probably not a Sonos issue (as Alan_6 alludes above), but I expect that Sonos is already in contact with Spotify to resolve the issue.
Userlevel 4
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This is still happening, and still very annoying.
Userlevel 1
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Still happening for me too in the Sonos IOS app. Albums are correctly separated from "Appears on" in the Spotify app, although I think they may have been briefly mixed together in the Spotify app at the time I first noticed the problem in the Sonos app .
This is super annoying. Attached is the result I got for Paul Young on my iPad... Endless amounts of 80s compilations, the Albums hard to find.
For now I need to stick to using Spotify directly. I often search for an artist and then use the All Albums tab in Spotify to discover records I did not know before. This is not possible with the Sonos app displaying search results like this.

Userlevel 4
Badge +2
As of this morning, at least in the desktop app, this appears to be fixed. Thank you!!
Interesting. With no update to the Sonos software, that points to a change on Spotify’s serving of the information.
Fixed on Android app too (without an update to the Sonos software). Yay!
Still an issue, one year later. Mainly frustrated to not have albums/comps set in chronological order. At least it would help one sort through the noise faster...