[Endem]

Is it just me or the WP8 music app is sluggish? For example when you switch to the next song the music changes but it takes at least two seconds for the app to change the song title and album artwork.

[Sam Sabri]

I've experienced that too, so you're not alone there. Not sure what to make of it.

[eric12341]

Haven't noticed this on my 8X , maybe it's been fixed with portico

[rockstarzzz]

Haven't noticed this on my 8X , maybe it's been fixed with portico

Nope not fixed with Portico. I'm on Portico and it's still awful. That is one area that compared to WP7 is just way below par, even may be compared to Android.

[London Jr]

the reason it is sluggish will usually have a lot to do with the speed of your memory card, the 8x wouldn't have this problem because it doesn't use expandable memory. If you have a class 2 or 4 memory card and u don't like it running slow after you put more content on it try and upgrade to a class 6 or 10 microsd and it also depends on the brand too. I have a class 10 samsung sd card in my lumia 810 after using a class 2, HUGE difference. It lagged and sometimes didn't even play the music, now it doesn't have that issue.

[awesomeindeed]

My 920 does this as well. Not the end of the world but whatever, still annoying.

[eagle628]

It's horribly slow; there's the lag in switching songs, then there's also a brief delay when you hit play an album or artist, and when you try to play all music it brings the phone to its knees, it won't do anything for ten seconds, then the music starts, but it takes another ten seconds for everything else to unfreeze and switch to the now playing screen. This may be related to the fact that I have about 2500 songs on it, but still, my old Zune could handle almost 2000 without a problem.

[irvin792]

It's horribly slow; there's the lag in switching songs, then there's also a brief delay when you hit play an album or artist, and when you try to play all music it brings the phone to its knees, it won't do anything for ten seconds, then the music starts, but it takes another ten seconds for everything else to unfreeze and switch to the now playing screen. This may be related to the fact that I have about 2500 songs on it, but still, my old Zune could handle almost 2000 without a problem.

same here, totally unacceptable!

[SchueyF1]

Sometimes mine is sluggish, sometimes it's not. Hope it gets fixed sometime down the road.

[WPmunkey]

I don't really notice what you describe. My issues with the music app are different, like the music controls not showing automatically on the lock screen when waking while playing music

[Endem]

Can't imagine it having anything to do with my phone (8x) or with the WP version (Portico). Sometime it behaves but most of the time is just darn slow. The bigger update that MS announced is when? Maybe, they'll fix it.

[Chregu]

I have it on my 8X, but it seems as if had gotten worse in the recent days. I didn't really notice in the beginning and I didn't change the music library much.

[duncan0622]

I come across same issue, notably when connecting with a Bluetooth earphone. I have surfed a plenty of websites for solution but no luck. Now I surrender , just wait for portico. Mircosoft guy, hopes you notice this frustrating issue.

[thegooner]

If you follow @skipdeez on Twitter, you'll see he worked on Zune and has some thoughts on Xbox Music (he's since moved to the Xbox games side). My understanding is that it's a complete re-write for Windows 8/WP8 and he encourages us to bear with the product, as the Zune we know and love (client, syncing possibilities) got up to an eighth version, and MS are not there yet with it's replacement.
I personally don't see why they couldn't have hit the ground running with something that bettered Zune, after all it's not like they have a lack of developers and it's their own software, but maybe there are reasons us end users are not party to.

[mrshamoozoo]

my problem is, when you hit random in the main screen of the music app, but decide later on that you want to listen to a specific album, the phone is still on random for that album. on wp7 random would never stay on after i was done using it. so annoying

[SchueyF1]

I switched off "Connect to Xbox Music" in the settings and I no longer get the lag that I sometimes get when selecting songs, albums, etc. But I also no longer get bio's etc. Xbox Music needs so much work it is not even funny.

[mjess_key]

I noticed that some albums become sluggish when skipping from track to track and some are not. So I thought this could be a tag reading issue.

I tried removing all the tags of my select songs using mp3tag and then update the tags again thru windows media player.

The player became snappy again.

[AngryNil]

I switched off "Connect to Xbox Music" in the settings and I no longer get the lag that I sometimes get when selecting songs, albums, etc. But I also no longer get bio's etc. Xbox Music needs so much work it is not even funny.

With it off, is it smooth to swipe between songs? I get a bit of delay on my Omnia 7, interested how much it has improved on WP8 devices.

[Senad Crljenkovic]

I noticed that some albums become sluggish when skipping from track to track and some are not. So I thought this could be a tag reading issue.

I tried removing all the tags of my select songs using mp3tag and then update the tags again thru windows media player.

The player became snappy again.

Hi,
I had same lag issue with all my previous WP8 phones (HTC 8X, Lumia 920 and now Ativ S). On Ativ S it was even more annoying, because of class 4 SD Card. I decided to try to rewrite tags again, but for 11GB collection it wasn't an easy task. Tried different mp3 tagging applications, and ended up writing this little dirty "MP3 Tag Rewriter" tool.
This tool scans folder (incl. subfolders) for mp3 files and, for each file, removes mp3 tags, then writes tags again. It preserves only most important tags: Title, Album, Genre, Artists, Performers, Year, Track# and Cover Art (front cover only).
It's super easy to use - just point to a folder, and click Start.
Make sure you have BACKUP of your music.

After running this tool on my mp3 collection, there is no lag on wp8 music player anymore.

If this tool is helpfull for you, please let me know in comments.
@mjess_key Thank you for idea about mp3 tags.

Download:
http://codeart.tech.ba/downloads/mp3tagrewriter.zip