Amazon Music users say service is ‘in shambles’ — here’s why

The Amazon Music icon appears on an iPhone home screen — (Image credit: Shutterstock)

Amazon Music recently made its full library available to Prime members for free, but according to a recent post by Insider, the music streaming service is said to be 'unusable' and in 'shambles' after the ability to select individual songs was removed unless they pay extra.

Amazon Music's expanded offering gives Prime members access to its full music library of 100 million songs and top podcasts ad-free, at no additional cost to their membership. On the face of it, this looks like a win for members who had previously been limited to two million songs as part of their Prime commitment.

One user commenting on Reddit said: "They claim it's a bug but the current app I cannot select songs I have paid for or playlists made up of songs I have paid for. It will play on shuffle with 'similar artists' added and you are limited to 6 skips per hour."

While another said: "I tried it after seeing the "free upgrade" for prime members. And every song I clicked played a slightly different song (often from the same album or artist). Very confusing. Took a little while to figure out what was going on (i.e. I wasn't paying the extra $9)."

Amazon Music Unlimited branding for Dolby Atmos content — (Image credit: Amazon/Dolby)

Analysis: History repeating

We've already seen controversy when rival music streaming service Spotify restricted the way music fans experienced their favorite artists and playlists, and several artists (including Adele) railed against the streaming service's use of default auto shuffle play button. The outcry asked that it be removed from albums to enable listeners to experience content in the track listing order that the artists and music producers originally intended. Thankfully, Spotify introduced dedicated play and shuffle buttons.

Even though the way we consume music today through services, such as Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal, is very different to the analog world that introduced me to music, I firmly believe that an album's running order — thoughtfully put together by the artists and record producers — should be listened to in the order they intended.

I have no objection to anyone skipping tracks they don't like, but I've rarely used any service that enforces shuffle playback, and I hardly ever use shuffle even when listening to a playlist. You see, I've spent so much time putting together mixtapes (remember those?), with carefully curated content for my own personal playback to fit a certain mood or capture a particular time or event, that I really do appreciate the musical journey when tracks fit together in some artistic way. Otherwise, you're waiting for the song you want to play, and that's not really any better than listening to the radio.

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Lee was Tom's Guide's audio editor, where he covered all things audio for Tom's Guide, including headphones, wireless speakers and soundbars and loves to connect and share the mindfulness benefits that listening to music in the very best quality can bring. As a former editor of the U.K.'s Hi-Fi Choice magazine, Lee is passionate about all kinds of audio tech and has been providing sound advice to enable consumers to make informed buying decisions since he joined Which? magazine as a product tester in the 1990s. Lee has joined the passionate audio experts at audiograde.uk where he writes about luxury audio and Hi-Fi.