Groove Music vs. Others

[P_Devil]

I am looking at switching music streaming providers. Right now I have Apple Music but keep running into problems. I go through and add albums to my library and then I will listen to each song and rate it. If I don't like it, I don't do anything. If I like a song, I will "Love" it and that song will automatically be added to a "Best Of" playlist. There's currently about 7500 songs in there. I then have my iPhone 7 Plus setup to download that "Best Of" playlist. Anytime I add a song to it (automatically), my iPhone automatically downloads the song. It's all fine and dandy until, for whatever reason, Apple starts removing content. I've had content just get taken down (I'm guessing the streaming rights were expired) and not replace, I've had Apple go through and remove albums and ratings that were already in my library and rated (so I have to do it all over again), and I have a plethora of songs that are mismatched and iTunes/Apple Music keeps mismatching them (often times I'll manually upload a file but then it gets matched with the censored version and I can't do anything about it).

Needless to say, I'm getting tired of this and I've started shopping around. I have no interest in Spotify as their 3333 offline song limit isn't near enough for me. I would also like to avoid Google Music as I have a couple hundred albums that aren't on Google's service and would need uploading. They're in the mpeg-4 AAC format and Google Music will transcode those while uploading resulting in files that are worse quality. So I'm looking at Groove Music. I already faced one limitation; having 1000 songs in a single playlist. So, before I move forward and generation 8 different playlists and download them all to my phone, I need to make sure that Groove Music is stable.

Does content randomly get deleted? Will I get a notification is some songs are no longer available for streaming and will it let me know what songs those are without me having to scroll through a list of 7500 items?

 

[jasqid]

Well I typed out a long response to your question in the Windows Central app on windows. Clicked post and it all disappeared. So now the short version.

Long time music pass subscriber since Zune days. Yes music will disappear because the rights to the music change either due to the artist or the label. From my personal experience when seeing this the song or album is not deleted from your list but you get an icon ! that lets you know the problem. Usually no longer available. On occasion you cant do anything but remove it, sometimes I have seen you cant stream it but you can purchase it. The app wont alert you to this, but you can sort through different options like ALL, Available Offline, Streaming, Only on this Device, Purchased, Groove Music Pass. You would see the icon next to the tune or album.

I went on to touch some of your other comments but lost the time to finish this. Got your important one I think. Ill stop back later.

 

[P_Devil]

Thanks for getting back to me. I'm fine with a music service deleting content because they no longer have the rights to stream/host it. What I'm not ok with is how Apple Music would remove albums and ratings from my library without telling me while the content is still being offered through Apple Music. I'll have an album disappear and/or songs un-loved even though they're still being offered through Apple Music. That's what I want to avoid as it drives me nuts. When I started switching over to Groove Music, I noticed that Apple Music un-loved a bunch of songs from at least 5 different albums from 5 different artists/bands, that was all just from artists in the A's and B's.

I want my music collection to remain intact unless it's being removed because of hosting issues.

 

[jasqid]

There really isn't a social aspect to Groove right now. You cant thumb up or down a song like Zune use to, or the other services for that matter. But one of the latter updates brought about YOUR GROOVE which I think they are trying to add some intelligence to the app. Mine has populated with a bunch of dynamic playlists based on what and who I listen to the most and least. Its different and I haven't really played around with it to much as I gravitate to my own playlists I created.... or I SHUFFLE ALL in my collection.

I think Apple wins it for the RADIO. Groove radio just created a random playlist of 20-30 songs and runs through them. The apple radio looks more like a radio and will play forever from my experience. I'm not knocking the Groove radio experience... Its just a difference in their approach. I do know for a fact... and its all my opinion of course... that the Xbox Music Radio DJ was MUCH better than the current Groove Radio. Better song selection when basing off an artist.

But back on point... you wont have to worry about songs or albums getting unloved... as there is no emotion in Groove.

 

[Ryujingt3]

I used to be an ITunes fan, particularly iTunes Music, the service where you upload your own songs and can stream them across all iOS devices. However, I recently sold my iPod Classic and iPod Shuffle and got a standard MP3 player for Groove. It works just fine, even if Groove cannot sync to an MP3 device. However, I would like the 1000 song playlist limit removed, that is one advantage iTunes has over Groove.

Unfortunately, all my music is my own. I cannot stream through Groove because Microsoft won't allow for a music pass to be purchased where I am (Thailand), and the internet is not the best either. So, whilst I cannot comment on Groove vs the rest with regards to streaming, it replaces iTunes for me just fine.

 

[Captain_Eric]

I don't know nothing about iTunes, but I've switched to Groove from Spotify for couple of main reasons 1) I can store my big 38GB personal collection in the cloud on OneDrive and stream it anywhere with Groove. This means no more managing a hard drive and backups and all that. It's "just there" on OneDrive. 2) Groove plays WMA format files, a vistage of another time, but still, in my personal collection. 3) Groove's catalog is ~40 million, while Spotify's is ~30M. While your results may vary depending on if the additional 10M tracks are ones you like, I'm pleased to know Groove's catalog is big. 4) unlike the other poster's experience, I find Groove's radio is superior to Spotify in that the span or diversity of radio tracks is wider on Groove, that is, instead of getting the same old same old, I hear new stuff. As another poster said, "My Groove" (or is it "Your Groove", I forget) creates some fine playlists based on my collection and listening habits. I discover more new music on Groove. As for your "loved tracks," I save tracks to a "favorites" playlist, which in turn I "make available offline," so it's there when I'm not streaming or otherwise off-line. Overall, Groove can now compete head to head with the big boys now, after a lot of improvements over the last year or so. To me, that constant improvement shows Microsoft is serious about music and we can be confident it will continue to innovate and improve. My 2?. Hope that helps.

 

[Ryujingt3]

I don't know nothing about iTunes, but I've switched to Groove from Spotify for couple of main reasons 1) I can store my big 38GB personal collection in the cloud on OneDrive and stream it anywhere with Groove. This means no more managing a hard drive and backups and all that. It's "just there" on OneDrive. 2) Groove plays WMA format files, a vistage of another time, but still, in my personal collection. 3) Groove's catalog is ~40 million, while Spotify's is ~30M. While your results may vary depending on if the additional 10M tracks are ones you like, I'm pleased to know Groove's catalog is big. 4) unlike the other poster's experience, I find Groove's radio is superior to Spotify in that the span or diversity of radio tracks is wider on Groove, that is, instead of getting the same old same old, I hear new stuff. As another poster said, "My Groove" (or is it "Your Groove", I forget) creates some fine playlists based on my collection and listening habits. I discover more new music on Groove. As for your "loved tracks," I save tracks to a "favorites" playlist, which in turn I "make available offline," so it's there when I'm not streaming or otherwise off-line. Overall, Groove can now compete head to head with the big boys now, after a lot of improvements over the last year or so. To me, that constant improvement shows Microsoft is serious about music and we can be confident it will continue to innovate and improve. My 2?. Hope that helps.

This was useful feedback. Thank you for this. I just wish I could get a Music Pass to test out the other features. Groove plays my local music collection just fine though. Except, I wish the playlist song limit was removed or increased.