Amazon Music: Songs & Podcasts reviews
What users love and hate, from real reviews
A music-streaming service bundled with Amazon Prime, for listeners who suddenly discovered that what used to come free now demands extra payment — while the app itself keeps breaking.
What users love
A huge, deep catalog — the main reason to stay
Even angry users admit the catalog is vast — rare, niche, and old albums turn up that others don't have. For many it's the sheer breadth of the library that outweighs all the technical sins.
Huge music selection even things I have never seen or heard of from my favorite artists!
Simple to search and find music, even some quite obscure and niche.
They had all the music I love, even the hard to find songs.
High-fidelity audio: Ultra HD, Atmos, 360 — for audiophiles
Audio-quality buffs praise HD/Ultra HD, Dolby Atmos, and 360 Reality Audio — for some listeners the sound alone is what keeps them subscribed. The built-in equalizer also gets called out as a plus.
Excellent sound quality after new update to amazon music unlimited with atmos and 360RA.
the audio quality is perfect man I love this app
Having the preset/ custom equalizer setting is def a big plus as it can make the already quality sound audio even better
Alexa and all-in-one: music, podcasts and audiobooks together
Alexa and multi-room integration, plus having music, podcasts and audiobooks in one app, make it a convenient "one-stop shop" for happy users and a natural fit inside the Prime ecosystem.
alexa integration and multiple room streaming is excellent
with more the just music, with podcast and audio books makes it your one stop shop.
the podcast and audible books are super good too!
A long free trial — a welcoming on-ramp for newcomers
The 3-4 month trial is longer than rivals' and is repeatedly called the best offer anywhere — it pulls in people tired of Spotify and lets them try the service without pressure.
the 3 month trial is the best offer anywhere!
grateful for the free 3 month trial. thank U Amazon.
I appreciate that the trial is longer than other apps
What users hate
A second paywall on top of Prime: "paying twice for the same thing"
What was bundled with Prime for years has been carved out into a separate paid Music Unlimited tier. Users see it as paying twice and a broken promise: "I already pay for Prime, why pay for music too?" For many it's the trigger to leave for Spotify or YouTube Music.
even after paying for prime you want to charge again for ad free music disgusting
why should I even pay twice for prime and also music? time to uninstall.
already we're paying for prime again we need to pay for unlimited
Ads that weren't there before: sudden interruptions even for Prime users
The new policy injected ads even for paying Prime members, with no warning, mid-year. Reviewers keep drawing the parallel with how Prime Video "slyly" introduced ads and an extra fee to remove them — people feel cheated.
the new update and new policies from Amazon have added ads for even the prime members which is stupid
In a similar manner to Amazon Prime Video slyly introducing adverts with an additional payment to go ad free
ad free music should be given to the prime users.
Music simply won't play: the track "loads" but no sound comes out
The single most common technical complaint: pick a track and it spins forever or plays for a minute and cuts out — even on a stable connection, even on downloaded files. Reinstalling and clearing cache only helps for a while.
Every song is just loading but not playing. Have tried restarting and clearing cache.
when I play music it stops playing the music after 1 minute no matter what I do and it tells me it's still playing
plays one song and then just stops. it will not play continuous music on my phone
Constant crashes: opens and instantly shuts down
The app crashes multiple times a day, sometimes right after launch, and the back button exits the whole app. Updates make it worse; the only fix is reinstalling or restarting the phone.
App keeps closing right after it opens
keeps shutting down. back button exit the app.
Continously crashes for no reason.
Downloads don't stay downloaded: offline mode breaks
Downloaded tracks "expire" after a week, demand re-downloading every day, and still try to stream instead of playing from the device. For anyone who pays specifically for offline (car, no-signal commute), it kills the whole point.
My downloads don't play offline after a week of downloading them!
when you download music it doesn't stay downloaded and it has to be refreshed and your offline play is absolutely trash
Why do I have to refresh my downloaded music EVERY DAY?!?! What's the point in downloading if it's going to redownload everything every day
You can't play music you bought: "I own it but can't access it"
A distinct wound for long-time buyers of Amazon MP3s: purchased tracks don't show in the library, won't download to the device, and now even demand a subscription to access. People spent hundreds "to own" the music — and lost access.
YOU BUY MP3 MUSIC AND THEN YOU CANT PLAY IT IN APP
I've spent hundreds of pounds on music so that I'd own it and not have to worry about accessing it whenever or wherever I choose only to find Amazon now expects me to pay to access tracks I've already purchased.
It cannot find music I own in my library! Absolutely useless.
Shuffle and playlists go rogue: the same loop over and over
Shuffle replays the same cluster of songs, ignores autoplay being switched off, jumps to unrelated artists, and resets the playlist to the start after a pause. Controlling your own queue is nearly impossible.
Shuffle doesn't work, it will just repeat the same cluster of songs over and over.
Now it's a repetitive loop that offers nothing
it has a nasty habit of defaulting to autoplay even when it is switched off
Pushy upsell popups with an accidental-subscribe trap
Every launch greets you with a full-screen Music Unlimited banner, and the buttons are laid out so you subscribe by accident before you can hit the tiny "no thanks." It's especially nasty in driving mode — people genuinely lost money on a subscription they never wanted.
wait a few seconds after you start the app before touching the screen or you'll find yourself $12 short with an unlimited subscription you didn't want
The moment you open the app, if you are logged in, it will just subscribe you. No confirmation or anything.
my daughter accidentally subscribed me to it because she just wanted to get rid of the ad
Cluttered, unintuitive UI and a sluggish search
The interface is called busy and stressful (compared to "what killed iTunes"), basics like the sleep timer and sorting are buried, and there's no A-Z jump for large libraries. Search got slower after AI was added — minutes instead of seconds.
The addition of AI has slowed down searching for anything. It takes minutes instead of seconds.
its far far far too busy a UI. its stressful just looking at it.
This app desperately needs an A-Z listing (jump to letter) across the top of my library
Podcasts treated as a stepchild: loses your place, mangles order, jumps to the newest episode
For podcasts the app is nearly unusable: it forgets the last episode, plays out of order regardless of settings, and during music randomly jumps to your latest podcast. Subscriptions vanish and have to be re-followed.
Almost useless for podcasts as it rarely remembers the last one listened to and is generally a pain.
skipping to random episodes, not play episodes in order regardless of settings selected
When I am trying to listen to music sometimes it will jump to the latest podcast that I was listening to.
Dolby Atmos and features quietly vanish: "degrades with every update"
Long-time users report regression: Dolby Atmos support was pulled (support reportedly blamed Android), presets disappear, and perks like a free audiobook are gone. It feels like every update removes rather than adds.
Every update their product and usability decreases.
Senior customer service told me that four levels above them said Android phones are no longer capable of handling Dolby Atmos.
lost several benefits, free armchair expert, audible 1 book