Reasons why I love Groove Music

[Arun3]

Reasons why I love Groove Music.



Groove does what?!!

Groove/Xbox music/Zune, whatever Microsoft decides to call it, does what it is supposed to do, which is play music, and that too, quite capably. I know, it may not be as feature rich as Zune of the yester years, or even Xbox music. But what was in the past is the past; we all need to look at what we have now. Let us begin with the name, Groove. It sounds quite hip, to me at least. Seriously, how lame is the name “Apple music”! I don’t subscribe to any other music services, except Groove. Here are the reasons why I think Groove suits me perfectly well.

A. The user interface is quite intuitive (which can debated, of course) and clean. When you open the app, the hamburger menu sits quite neatly on the top left, with the search bar right below, to take you where you want to,. This is followed by Albums, Artists, Songs, Radio and Now playing features. There is also a feature to explore what’s trending and what’s new-by top songs, albums, genres, etc. You can also create your own playlists, as many as you want.

B. I have an eclectic taste in music. I am an Indian in the US; have been here in NY for about 9 years. I listen to pop (Yes.. I unapologetically LOVE Britney Spears), country and rock genres in western music. I listen to Bollywood music and other regional Indian music (Malayalam and Tamil) as well. Groove provides me with all I need for less than $10 a month with no limits to the number of times you can play. Very often there are special deals/promos from Microsoft for a reduced music pass. Surprisingly there are some amazing selection of curated music available, which brings me to the next point,

C. I can take my music with me wherever I go. I can play Groove on my Lumia, on my Surface Pro at home, PC at work and on my friends Mac (say, during a party) by accessing my playlists via the web player.

D. Even more, I can download the Groove app on my iPhone 4S and make selected playlists available offline, without paying extra for streaming. How good is that! If I decide to move to Android (which most likely will never happen), there is Groove there as well. EDIT: Groove is on Xbox too!

E. And the cherry on the pie is the fact that Groove is available on SONOS. Yes, SONOS supports Groove, and I can listen to everything Zune, err… Groove, offers on one of the world’s best smart speaker systems available.

So there you go! Thought I would put my thoughts down for why I think I love Groove, and to why it serves my needs pretty well. It believe it is $ worth spent. It goes without saying, the service is only going to get better with the way MS is proceeding with Windows 10 upgrades. And of course, you can find some great music deals, like getting Taylor Swift’s massive hit album, 1989, for 99 cents!

For those of you who bought a new Windows 10 machine or upgraded to Windows 10, give Groove a chance. You’ll be quite happy you did.

Any thoughts? Please feel free to share below…

 

[ven07]

Re: Reasons why I love Groove Music.

I don't have anything to add, but dropping by to say thanks for the thread. Groove can sure use some love xd

 

[HeyCori]

Re: Reasons why I love Groove Music.

My problem with Groove, and I think most people's problem with Groove, is the software. Now, it has improved dramatically since it originally debuted as a stand-alone Xbox Music app, but it's still not up to the level of Zune. Problems include,

-Not syncing entire library
-Not syncing playlists properly
-Slow
-Wrong album art
-Can't edit metadata
-Frequent crashes
-"Resuming"

All together it ruins the user experience. I understand that Zune wasn't perfect. I've used the desktop software for years and I know it has its own annoyances, but nothing to the extent of Groove.

 

[Arun3]

Re: Reasons why I love Groove Music.

@HeyCori: Agree with you on the problems ruining the user experience. So far, I personally have had no issues with syncing library or playlists. Yes, the app is a bit slow, sometimes skip tracks and yes, it crashes one too many times . But nothing really annoying to totally warrant use of an alternative service, to be honest.

 

[ven07]

I know that at least one other mod has quit groove because of these issues

 

[Laura Knotek]

Re: Reasons why I love Groove Music.

I quit Groove Music, since I had too many issues with it on my PC. The biggest issue for me was the nonstop syncing, which never found all my songs, every time I opened the app. I'm using Spotify now.

 

[HeyCori]

Earlier this year Microsoft had a ridiculous sale on Groove music subscriptions so I picked up 2-years worth. Either way, I'm in it for the long haul, lol. To alleviate most of the problems I stopped downloading DRM songs to my PC. I'll use Groove to stream songs and that's it. I won't even create a playlist with streaming only songs. If I like a song enough to download it then I just buy the song and be done with it. And since MS opted to separate song purchases from the Groove app and put songs in the Store app (which is super inconvenient), I just buy the song off Amazon since my browser is usually open anyway.

 

[Arun3]

"And since MS opted to separate song purchases from the Groove app and put songs in the Store app (which is super inconvenient).. "

Tell me about it! It sure is annoying.. MS does these kind of "annoyingly inconvenient" decisions, which I can't wrap my head around!

So many things that need fixing would totally go unnoticed, while things that are perfectly fine as is, gets tossed around and changed.. sydney morning herald...

 

[Canjok]

Re: Reasons why I love Groove Music.

Could it be that the whole syncing process was better with Windows Phone 8 (not 8.1)? Because I have somehow the feeling, that on Win 8 my Lumia has always found the interpret and showed me Pics on my Lockscreen. Maybe I'm just imaging things -.-

 

[RTGent]

I've only used it on my Surface Pro 2, which I upgraded last week, and on my Xbox 360E; and, it has worked fine, so far. It's very early in Groove; even the OS is not in it's final form, so I'll look forward to ongoing improvements in Groove, as in other W10 elements. The next test for me will come when my 950 arrives. But, I'm already enjoying the same Collection I've been building for years since Zune's early days, and streaming the great variety of music I've always enjoyed with now-three generations of Microsoft Music Passes. I'm learning to navigate Groove easily with touch, and especially my new Comfort mouse.

Groove Music is Not as amazing as my 10-Songs-Included plan that finally expired this month. Yet, I won't be moaning about it, and I'm confident I'll continue to focus on The tons of Music So readily available to me to play Everywhere, and not fret about software. Best listening to all.

 

[BarbaDeHule]

Will there ever be an extensive investigative article as to what (or who) is driving Microsoft's media division? (Zune Soft>xbox music&groove)
I just want to be able to sync & maintain my collection to my phone, as Zune did with it's players and WP7, why take that away?

 

[Just Me]

It is 2015 and MicroSoft has not figured out how to incorporate a cross device sync, song count and last played date. I am pretty sure my first gen iPod / iTunes could get this correct. Who ever is steering this ship should must have no interest in music. Who doesn't sort their music library by play count or release date or genre? I checked groove music out, it's pretty but that where my complements end.

 

[RTGent]

I've now been using it for five days on my new Lumia 950. I didn't have to sync it to my SP2 nor any other device; on the second day it downloaded more than 6000 tracks from my OneDrive, syncing most everything as expected. It looks and runs a lot like Groove on the SP2, including a nice artist-image Now Playing screen which we haven't had on any prior Winphone version. I hope there's a setting that allows me to have that screen on continuously, at least while it's plugged in. Groove is a good illustration of the design intent to have the mobile version have the look and feel of the desktop one. I like it and is working for me, now on three devices.

 

[Arun3]

"I've now been using it for five days on my new Lumia 950."

Great to hear you are enjoying Groove. Also, congrats on the new toy

 

[fReAk RoAcH]

I know it's an old post, but you mentioned you listen to Bollywood music using Groove. I, however, can not find any new bollywood albums, or am i missing something?

 

[Sin Ogaris]

Re: Reasons why I love Groove Music.

I love on everything except PC, it just crashes every ten minutes, but on phone and Xbox i have zero issues.