Is there any place you can buy albums that isn't a rip-off???

[nopeda]

After looking around I naively got the impression that Google Play would be a respectable place. They charge top dollar but I had thought that after you paid for an album and it loaded on your phone you could play the entire album back without interuption. How ignorant is that? Very!!! I've paid $9+ each for several albums and not only will not a single one of them play without interuption, but not a single one of them will play entirely at all! There are several tracks on every one of them, sometimes half the album, that says the track will not play unless it's online or some such garbage. I paid for each album so it would be mine on my phone and wouldn't depend on any onlineness...whatever that even means. So, is there any place you can buy albums that isn't a rip-off like that???

Thank you for any help!
David

 

[Dannydet]

Try this....
https://www.google.com/search?q=how...id-att-aio-us&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

 

[JAy3001]

Whether you use a service like Google Play Music to purchase individual albums or use a streaming service. When out and about, unless you have a unlimited data plan for your phone you will need to use that services download or offline mode to play the albums or playlists in your car etc.

Any service that does not offer a download or offline mode is not worth your time. Personally I use Google Play Music and Amazon Music, both of which offer offline playback.

 

[Hadron]

I know it's heretical, but last time I looked you could buy albums from iTunes too (which are downloaded and DRM-free, so work on your phone just like a download from anywhere else).

I've never bought music from Google, so can't comment on that. But I've also never considered paying for an album and doing anything other than downloading it.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

This is just why I buy CDs and rip them if I don't want to stream.

 

[nopeda]

Try this....
https://www.google.com/search?q=how...id-att-aio-us&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

That would probably be great but I don't get that option. The options I get are: Start radio, Start instant mix, Shop this artist, Share and Shuffle artist. Those are the only options that come up when I do it. I did pay them the $9+ though...

 

[nopeda]

This is just why I buy CDs and rip them if I don't want to stream.

I tried doing that with a CD I already have, but then it won't load it to the phone as an album but instead as individual songs which makes for a huge mess and it won't play them back as an album. Also it doesn't put them in the order they are on the album. Is there a way to make it work right?

 

[Mikestony]

Perhaps because I use PowerAmp to play my downloaded music/albums I don't have your issue, is your issue with the Google Music Player itself or are you using a different app to play your downloaded music?

 

[nopeda]

unless you have a unlimited data plan for your phone you will need to use that services download or offline mode to play the albums or playlists in your car etc.

Any service that does not offer a download or offline mode is not worth your time. Personally I use Google Play Music and Amazon Music, both of which offer offline playback.

I'm still very new to this and don't understand what you're telling me. I thought when you buy the album it's yours and it's on your phone so it doesn't use data to play back. It does seem to "download" extremely fast though when I buy an album. Like instantly. So is it not really downloading at all? And if not what are we paying for when we "purchase" an album? Nothing? I thought to listen to albums you have not bought you pay a monthly fee for a service and it's in that type situation that you have to have internet connection and it uses data to listen. So am I wrong about every bit of this?

 

[lunatic59]

I tried doing that with a CD I already have, but then it won't load it to the phone as an album but instead as individual songs which makes for a huge mess and it won't play them back as an album. Also it doesn't put them in the order they are on the album. Is there a way to make it work right?

That's going to depend on what you use to "rip" them (re-encode). In some cases it will strip off the meta tags from the tracks so it just has a filename. You can either use something that will preserve the metadata or you can add it back in yourself with an app like MP3tags

 

[lunatic59]

And if not what are we paying for when we "purchase" an album? Nothing?

When you buy an album, which is just a collection of songs in any form, you are really just licensing the rights to listen to it whenever you like. Whether the media is vinyl, a CD or streaming, you don't really own the album, just the delivery media.

 

[nopeda]

I know it's heretical, but last time I looked you could buy albums from iTunes too (which are downloaded and DRM-free, so work on your phone just like a download from anywhere else).

I've never bought music from Google, so can't comment on that. But I've also never considered paying for an album and doing anything other than downloading it.

I thought you have to have an iPhone to use iTunes and I have an Android. Also I thought I did download the albums I'm trying to listen to which is the reason for paying $9+ for them. Apparently I know nothing. What is DRM-free?

 

[Clementine_3]

I also use PowerAmp and have no problems playing full albums in order. My tunes are a mash-up of stuff I bought from iTunes waaaay back when, stuff I ripped from my CDs and stuff I bought from Amazon (both MP3s only and autorip CDs).

I used Google Music once and hated it, bought an album and had to jump through hoops to try to find it and save it on my phone so I could play it with PowerAmp. Never again. I've not tried Amazon's streaming at all.

If I want to stream I use Pandora and go with what they play for me. If I want my own tunes I use PA to play my downloaded songs. I do have a thumb-drive in my car's system but that is a hot mess because of stupid Gracenote. I had to spend a ton of time updating all my iTunes tags and Gracenote doesn't recognize any of them.

Well, there you go, lots of ramblings that don't help you

 

[Hadron]

I thought you have to have an iPhone to use iTunes and I have an Android. Also I thought I did download the albums I'm trying to listen to which is the reason for paying $9+ for them. Apparently I know nothing. What is DRM-free?

DRM is "digital rights management". A generic term that covers copy protection on DVDs through to stuff Amazon puts in e-books to stop you reading them on non-Amazon devices. In the early days of music downloads most had DRM, and although Apple were one of the first to drop it the urban legend that iTunes music only plays through the iTunes app or on iDevices persists, which is why I specified that they do not have DRM.

So no, you don't need an iPhone. I don't have one. I've bought stuff from iTunes on a computer, copied it to my phone and it works fine. It's encoded as AAC rather than MP3, but that's irrelevant: both are open formats (AAC is not an Apple format, that's another myth), and every Android music app I've ever used can play both (disclosure: I have never used Google Play Music at all).

I've also ripped a lot of CDs, and have a few things I've bought from Amazon and other stores. Never had any problem with any of them. But it's a good idea to have something that can edit the metadata (tags), because as said above different ripping apps don't always get these correct or sensible (especially if you have an album that extends over more than one disk and want it to appear as a single album and to be able to play it continuously, as that's something they often don't get right).

 

[PitCarver]

Most all of my music is ripped from CDs and downloaded to the external storage on my phone.
I use PowerAmp also and it gives the option to listen to the entire library or to filter by genra, artist or album. If the songs fail to play in a particular order they can be edited to add a track number.

 

[Xyro]

I organise my entire music collection in iTunes, and the files that it produces work just fine with android. The metadata (album, artist, album-artist, track + disc numbers) and album art and so on are read correctly.

I then use an app called iSyncr that works just like syncing an iPod did 10 years ago. Your music and playlists are transfered to your phone, any files you deleted in iTunes are cleared out of the phone and so on. It isn't anything you couldn't do yourself by dragging and

As a bonus, google make a peice of software that will sync your iTunes library to google music. So any purchases/imported music you have on iTunes will be reflected on google music. I don't like google music much, but if you're in a situation where you don't have a local copy of your music, this way you can still listen to your stuff via google music.

 

[JAy3001]

I'm still very new to this and don't understand what you're telling me. I thought when you buy the album it's yours and it's on your phone so it doesn't use data to play back. It does seem to "download" extremely fast though when I buy an album. Like instantly. So is it not really downloading at all? And if not what are we paying for when we "purchase" an album? Nothing? I thought to listen to albums you have not bought you pay a monthly fee for a service and it's in that type situation that you have to have internet connection and it uses data to listen. So am I wrong about every bit of this?

You are somewhat correct. When you purchase an album is the Play Store it will become available straight away, but only for streaming while your on data or WiFi. You need to download each album you want to listen to while offline. It's the same if you are using a streaming service, great for when at home but no good once you out and about. So again you need to download the items for offline playback.

If you actually what access to your MP3s you will need to use a PC to download them, then transfer them to your device. Which is pretty pointless when you can temporarily download them to your device anyway.

In reference to problems with playback of MP3s, I only have this issue with albums I've manually added to my Google Play Music account with various issues from:

• Missing ID3 information,
• Splitting albums up into 2 or 3 parts,
• Not picking up the album art,
• Incorrect playback order.

This is why I gave up importing my music into the Playstore, almost impossible to get it to save the details correctly.

I've attached some images of the steps you need to perform to download you music to your device through the Play Music App.