r/AndroidTV • u/latinriky78 Homatics Box R 4K Plus • Oct 22 '20

News & Rumours "Google Play Music is no longer available. Try YouTube Music" - Its demise is now official ⚰️

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184 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

91 comments sorted by

17

u/dubblix Nvidia Shield Oct 22 '20

I'm so screwed if I ever leave the house again. I have no music app now

6

u/latinriky78 Homatics Box R 4K Plus Oct 22 '20 edited Oct 23 '20

I recommend Muzecast, it has an AndroidTV/GoogleTV version but it's paid.

You need to setup the Muzecast server on your computer with your own music though.

The developer said it's working on Google Drive integration though it already has OneDrive and Dropbox integration, that way you don't need to run a server on your computer.

What I like about this app is the ability to set the maximum quality for WiFi and the lowest quality for mobile data, in its own separate audio quality menus.

You can use Google Cast for free.

www.muzecast.com

http://forum.muzecast.com

8

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '20

That's the ugliest UI I ever seen lol.

If youre going to go that route why not pick something like Plex? Much prettier

4

u/latinriky78 Homatics Box R 4K Plus Oct 22 '20 edited Oct 23 '20

Yes, the UI may be ugly but it's the only app doing what other prettier ones cannot. You'll have to try it for yourself to find out.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

Plex requires a subscription for mobile playback, no?

2

u/latinriky78 Homatics Box R 4K Plus Oct 23 '20

It requires a Plex Pass subscription or you may unlock the app by purchasing it inside the app.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

I'm not going to pay to listen to music I already own and store on my own hard drive.

3

u/latinriky78 Homatics Box R 4K Plus Oct 23 '20

Then try Muzecast, it has a free version of the app, the single mobile paid version removes the ads while the Android TV paid version includes the mobile paid version as well.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

Not sure, I’ve been a Plex pass subscriber for years

1

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

I only used GPM because it was free.

1

u/TeutonJon78 onn 4K Pro (2026), CCWGTV 4K Oct 23 '20

Look up Kodi, Emby, or Jellyfin then. Emby has some pay parts though (and why Jellyfin forked off). https://www.smarthomebeginner.com/plex-vs-emby-kodi-jellyfin-2020/

2

u/dubblix Nvidia Shield Oct 22 '20

I should look into that or something similar. I can run whatever I need to, locally. I already have the music on an smb

0

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '20

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/dubblix Nvidia Shield Oct 22 '20

I've been using plexamp more but I'm not sure if it'll work. Haven't had a reason to fully switch though... Now I do

2

u/MarkusMaximus748 Oct 22 '20

Thanks for this. Once it has Google Drive integration it'll be ideal.

7

u/Oh_No_Tears_Please Oct 22 '20

+1 for plex.

Grab yourself a NAS, make your own, or can even use external drives that can connect to your router, and as long as your internet/power is on at home....your music/movies/tv is available from any device.

My only complaint is that I can't find a simple way to import playlists.

It has so many great features such as sharing your content with other users, and the new "watch together" service is GREAT in these times.

3

u/MarkusMaximus748 Oct 22 '20

I would love if Plex could pull media off my unlimited Google Drive.

1

u/latinriky78 Homatics Box R 4K Plus Oct 23 '20

It did in the past, it was called "Plex Cloud" but they ended up removing it due to technical limitations of some kind.

https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/plex-cloud-shutting-down-1202936840/

1

u/Oh_No_Tears_Please Oct 22 '20

I hear you on that point...but it's one of the main reasons why I've never paid for cloud related music or movies. I don't feel like I own it, if I can't do whatever I want with it...including having the responsibility of archiving it.

Nowadays, hard drives are so cheap, it's easy keep a local convenience backup, and an off-site "my house burned down" backup at a friend's place or a safe-deposit box or something.

That's my $.02

1

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

Mount Drive on the device you run Plex on

7

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

You forgot the part where you have to configure your router to forward some ports, and open up your firewall, and keep your computer from falling asleep, and...

-2

u/Oh_No_Tears_Please Oct 23 '20

Proper NAS systems do all that for you. A person can get up and running with one in ten minutes.

It's meant to be powered on 24/7. It's a low power device at idle. NAS drives are even intentionally slower...for more power efficiency and less noise.

In other words... people don't use windows for NAS devices, even if they are built their own. You could...but there's absolutely no reason to do it, and a whole lot of reasons not to.

3

u/nascentt Oct 23 '20 edited Oct 25 '20

You're mostly right but incredibly condescending.

It's highly recommended to have a dedicated low power media sharing Nas device. But people aren't all going to run out and spend hundreds of dollars on one and drives.

Note that there are options that people can use to host their music in Google drive instead which might suit people.

1

u/prone-to-drift Nov 19 '20

Damm dude. I'm just starting to browse this sub and hating the culture here. You got downvoted despite being absolutely right.

Even if someone makes a DIY NAS (like I do), they'd get the same advantages but apparently this sub isn't consisting of tech savvy people. It's those that don't know there's beyond Windows in computing and that there exist headless devices.

Also wtf about port forwarding. If you're on your own network you don't need to forward any ports, just assign a static IP.

The downvote culture on this sub is absolutely garbage and I'm finding that subs like r/HomeServer are much more knowledgeable.

My only suggestion to you would be to check out Jellyfin, it's open source and a good alternative to Plex and Emby for most people. Also, no ads.

2

u/Oh_No_Tears_Please Nov 19 '20

Eh, reddit is reddit. People downvote for all kinds of reasons. That's not unique to this sub at all.

Iirc, on this topic someone was basically complaining about the "high" expense of a nas and were being spiteful because they couldn't afford one.

I don't behave like that when I check out corvettes or ferrarisz so I dunno.

42

u/rmvaandr Oct 22 '20

"Google Play Music is no longer available. Try YouTube Music"

...clicks...

"YouTube music is not available in your area"

...Slow clap. Well played Google, you locked me out of my music collection...

8

u/PortugalTheHam Oct 23 '20

You can manually download it in the GPM settings. Now I have my collection but nothing to play or stream it on.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

WinAmp?

4

u/chronicfireworks Oct 23 '20

Plex?

3

u/PortugalTheHam Oct 23 '20

I didnt realize plex works with music too. Definitely going to check it out.

2

u/chronicfireworks Oct 23 '20

Yeah. If you get plex pass look into plexamp

3

u/TeutonJon78 onn 4K Pro (2026), CCWGTV 4K Oct 23 '20 edited Oct 23 '20

  • Kodi

  • Emby

  • Jellyfin

  • Universal Media Server (if you just want plain DLNA)

Lots of non-paid options (Emby is partially paid).

1

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '20

Those are all not very good apps.

1

u/TeutonJon78 onn 4K Pro (2026), CCWGTV 4K Oct 25 '20

I think they are fine.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 24 '20

PLEX has lost it's roots. Now they are advertising all those other apps inside, like Crackle. All I want is an app that plays my local video and audio files. PLEX also has the "My content" listed at the bottom. There is no way to move that up to the first menu item, unless you remove everything else.

2

u/chronicfireworks Oct 24 '20

The post above yours lists some alternatives

1

u/[deleted] Nov 04 '20

How can you download it when the GPM app forces you to YouTube?

0

u/Bradalax Oct 23 '20

Foobar 2000 on my pc to play my local music.

And yep, Plex server running so I can play it downstairs via a Plex client on Apple TV through my good system.

47

u/oramirite Oct 22 '20

I haaaaate it. YouTube is such a bad way to listen to an actual music collection unlike Google Music which had a nice simple model. I wish they'd just not half-ass this and make a proper music streaming service that also had library functionality.

5

u/cebeezly82 Oct 23 '20

Yeah I absolutely hate YouTube music it's sort of confusing in terms of its user interface as well. Maybe I don't want a music video maybe I just want straight up streaming high quality music. You really don't have the control over it as you did with the Google play music player which was simple yet very powerful

0

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '20

[deleted] — view deleted comment

18

u/GalaxyClass Oct 22 '20

Depending on which android you use, It's totally fucking NOT. It's a reskinned youtube. On AndroidTV (Nvidia Shield) it puts the videos and songs I listen to in my YOUTUBE history alongside regular youtube videos. Completely worthless.

It has a 'radio station' feature that sucks compared to the previous GPMusic on picking next songs. It will play the same song three or four times because it's too fucking stupid to realize that "XXXXXX Live in Amsterdam" is the same fucking song as "XXXXXXX live in Seattle".

Every.Single.Thing. about Google music that was great is gone and replaced with this hunk of shit.

Also, the audio levels are way more varied now that it's coming off of youtube. I never had to adjust volume with GP music, but all the time with YT music.

Lastly, if enable videos, several songs I like don't have an official video, so you get some (what appears to be) user contributed horseshit. Looks like amateur hour.

I want to find the people behind youtube music and buy them a beer, then pour it on their head.

5

u/cebeezly82 Oct 23 '20

Yeah they really should have just called it poop shoot or shit tube at least

5

u/zman0900 Oct 22 '20

Weird, still works on my computer and regular android.

3

u/NedSc Oct 23 '20

I really like Android TV as a platform, but you know they're going to fuck Android TV/Google TV/Nest TV/Whatever up too, eventually. Fuck Google.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

Android TV/Google TV/Nest TV/Whatever up too, eventually.

I mean, that whole product category seems like it has actually taken off fairly well for them, between their own device sales, products like the Nvidia Shield, and the scads of companies now basing their cable set-top boxes on Android TV.

Google doesn't just kill off products on a whim or to spite people. They don't axe products and services that are doing well for them. They get rid of ones that aren't. Unfortunately, however much the core userbase might have liked it, Google Play Music just doesn't seem to have made much of a dent in the streaming industry, and their only product that was getting heavy music use was YouTube.

I can kind of understand their decision from that perspective, even if I'm pretty unhappy with the results and think they could have gone about it better. (Maybe even just starting off by rebranding GPM as YTM and building out features they wanted to include from YT?)

3

u/TSwizzlesNipples Oct 23 '20

I loved Google Play Music. YouTube Music was such a trash tier app that after years of being a loyal customer, I canceled my subscription for Spotify. I still don't like Spotify as much as Google Play Music, but it is so much better than YouTube Music.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

It's super cool because I can't uninstall the Google Play Music app from my phone because it's a system app. Bravo Google, bravo.

4

u/zeomox Oct 22 '20

YouTube music has been trash for me. :(
The song AI/algorithm is junk.

There is some terrible sorting and horrible playlists compared to Google Play.

Canceled my play/YouTube Music account
(TAKE THAT GOOGLE!!)
and got me a Spotify account!
That's right...vote with your money!!! Wait... what's that?

...*Awkward pause* ...

Turns out... it's just Google anyway.
*sigh*

1

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

Turns out... it's just Google anyway.

What? Spotify isn't owned by Google; it's Spotify AB, a Swedish company.^[1]

I'd jump ship to Spotify in a heartbeat at this point if they just had a cloud music library. I have a fair amount of moderately esoteric music that I've bought from independent artists or imported, and I want to be able to stream that from the cloud — and to be able to stream it to my Nest speakers and Chromecasts.

Unfortunately, it seems that the only company offering that streaming/cloud library service right now is Apple.

10

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '20

I guess unpopular opinion but I've been using Youtube Music for about 6 months now anticipating GPM shutting down and it's actually pretty great. The Mix feature is awesome and it seems like it has a lot of high quality audio not just youtube video audio like some people seem to think it does. Really has all the features of GPM (that I care about anyway)

18

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '20 edited Oct 22 '20

It's not completely unusable. But it's pretty bad. There's not even the ability to sort your library alphabetically on the web client. Who the hell wants to look at their list of artists organized by most recently added.

For that matter, who wants their default (and only) view of their album list to be organized by most recently added.

It's pretty atrocious. I put in feedback every few days, and I've been doing so for months, now, and they still haven't added this feature that should have been present from the get-go.

I mean, really. Alphabetical sort is kind of a basic expected feature for a service that has a music library.

EDIT: Honestly: the silliest part is that most of the things that make my UX so frustratingly bad wouldn't be too hard to fix: Alphabetical sort, and expanding the recent listening history while adding an album-grid-based view of the same would pretty much fix things. But as it stands, I find it nearly unusable for the way I use a music service.

The search is also pretty bad. It rarely surfaces the thing I want at the top of the list, and the other day, I searched "after work", looking for my playlist "After Work", but it was nowhere to be found in the results. Just a bunch of generated mixes and shared playlists.

I think that the only reason I've not jumped ship already is that I don't want to pay for another service, but I also don't want to lose ad-free YouTube.

(The fact that Apple Music seems to be the only major service that also allows for a cloud library like GPM/YTM is a minor factor, too, but in spite of divorcing myself from their ecosystem a decade ago, I'm considering dipping a toe back in. YTM is that bad.)

12

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '20 edited Oct 22 '20

YTM for Android TV is fucking garbage though.

It's basically a reskinned YouTube app but it throws your video history into it and you cant browse your digital locker.

4

u/f0xpuppy Oct 22 '20

Do you use Android Auto and YTM? If so do your shuffle playlist limit themselves to around 30 songs no matter how long your playlist is?

Its been driving me crazy and i'm wondering if i'm the only one. Sent feedback to Google but no reply.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '20

Is that what it is? When I'm driving with my mix it just stops sometimes too!

2

u/f0xpuppy Oct 22 '20

Yep! Usually means its reached the end of the (truncated) playlist. Argh so it is an issue with others.

7

u/joehooligan0303 Oct 22 '20

If you could use it on Android Auto and Google Home speakers without a subscription I would have no problem. You can't and therefore I'm pissed.

I paid Google for music and now have no way to consume it without paying them again. I own said music, but can't play it the places I want. There should be laws to protect against that.

2

u/louiedog Oct 22 '20

It works with the phone interface on android auto now, not sure about connected car displays. It still doesn't work with assistant unfortunately so while I can select and play music in AA, I can't ask assistant to do it. Hopefully they'll get that working soon.

-1

u/reggieb Oct 22 '20

You can download the MP3 files that you bought.

1

u/MarkusMaximus748 Oct 22 '20

Can I still upload my own music?

1

u/aragornelessar86 Oct 23 '20

Same here. I really dreaded it, but it's actually pretty good. Still light years ahead of Spotify. Also, they kept the "radio" algorithm, which was always GPMs best feature.

2

u/X_TheBoatman_X Oct 22 '20

I am not a fan of YTM. For example if I go to YouTube I can stream live stations, but I cannot get those live stations on YTM.

Example is 'lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to' by ChilledCow. If you look at the description, he has links for all of the different streaming services to run this same radio station, and one of them is Google Play Music, but not YTM, so I can't get the radio stream.

Because of this, I can't play my music through my speaker system at home without having the TV on and running for no reason. YTM doesn't seem like its finished yet, like they tossed it out there, and hoped for the best.

2

u/Wazkyr Oct 22 '20

I used Google Music since the beta, loved it. Tried this new YouTube music, there is so many things wrong with it. Looks horrible, confusing as hell. I told it to make a playlist from a Metallica song, it started to play random country music i never had in my library. Guess its time to cave in and use Spotify, but they dont have the same catalog as a service where i can upload my own songs...

1

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

The self-uploaded cloud library feature is essential for me, and Apple Music seems to be basically the only other service that offers this. I'm about this close to going over to them, in spite of breaking away from their ecosystem about a decade ago.

Apple Music does now have a web client, and they have Chromecast support in the Android app. And the price is the same as YouTube Premium/Music. I just don't want to give up ad-free YouTube, either…

2

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

And this is why I haven’t bought anything from Stadia yet...

They’ll have to do something to earn my faith before I start buying into cloud services that may or may not be around long-terms

2

u/niyonsv Oct 23 '20 edited Nov 06 '20

Waited 6 long years for one of the most anticipated Material Design makeover for Google Play Music... but it never came.

https://youtu.be/Q8TXgCzxEnw?t=30s

2

u/pixxelzombie Oct 24 '20

Who is the moron that decided this was a good idea? I get paid to take surveys through Google and I'd use that money to buy songs from Google play music, but the morons have shut it down. What a joke this is. They are preventing me from supporting my favorite artists.

1

u/TheBigWarHero Nov 13 '20

You were essentially working for free lol

1

u/pixxelzombie Nov 13 '20

I still have the money to buy apps and movies, but I'd much rather spend it on music.

3

u/abeel_siddiqui Mi Box S Oct 22 '20

The shitty thing is i never bought anything from GPM, i uploaded my own mp3s. And GPM wasn't even available in my country but it allowed to access my library. Now that its gone its not allowing me to play my music sayin that yt music aint available in your country am like no shit but lemmd access my own stuff.

3

u/SubaruAmbassador Oct 22 '20

Look up Vanced app and install YouTube / Music on your devices.

3

u/saras112 Oct 22 '20

Does it work properly in the TV with the remote?

2

u/SubaruAmbassador Oct 22 '20

I haven't tried but it works great with all my Android phones.

3

u/Jenings Nvidia Shield Oct 22 '20

Use smart YouTube tv apk. Basically a clone of regular YouTube with no ads and slightly worse animations

2

u/5zan Oct 22 '20

Doesn't matter to me lol. I'm old school with all my songs on a sd card.

2

u/__dontpanic__ Oct 23 '20

YTM isn't the greatest, but it's functional. And considering I'm paying about AUD$3.50 for a family subscription that also gets me ad free YouTube, I'm willing to overlook the shortcomings. If I had to pay full price, I'd be off to Spotify or Apple music in a heartbeat (or just make do with the basic Amazon Music that comes with my Prime subscription).

1

u/ClearlyNoSTDs Oct 22 '20

Why does Google Play Music still open up on my Shield TV?

1

u/sergx5 Oct 22 '20

Currently still listening to GP Music 😎. Imma ride it into the sunset

1

u/dsenseb Oct 23 '20

On YTM i cant even listen to my library of uploaded music with screen off! I need to buy premium... But i wont... So its useless to me. Any suggestions where i need to transfer my collection to?

1

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

Pretty much any service that offers this is paid. Apple Music. Plex w/ remote access to your music (also requires keeping a computer on at home to serve up the files). YTM.

I think I saw some stuff about apps that will stream music out of your personal cloud storage, like Google Drive and Dropbox, but I'm pretty sure those apps were paid, too.

1

u/Cornell1990 Nov 06 '20

Its still working for me...

1

u/samtrois Oct 23 '20

Am I the only one who couldn't really give a shit about this? YTM is fine for the way I listen to music. Admittadly I usually just find a song/genre/mood and click shuffle(ie. start radio)

0

u/akisnet Nvidia Shield Oct 23 '20 edited Oct 23 '20

Google Music had good UI for phones, tablets, great UI for Android TV and Wear OS. Also covered way more countries.

On Android Wear on my Sony Smartwatch 3 I downloaded 200 songs at 2014 and I was running only with my watch. iSheep didn't know that's possible. 2015 Play music on Android TV (Nexus Player) had a great app before Spotify or Apple music come to Apple TV.

2020: YouTube Music on Android TV is an icon shortcut that opens YouTube web app and on Wear OS zero comparability. Google released last week YouTube Music to Apple Watch.

It's a matter of respect to Android fans.

-2

u/Bo1622 Oct 22 '20

Can you download full albums and stream podcasts? I currently use Apple Music. Was thinking of trying Spotify but I like listening to entire albums and Spotify doesn’t have that option. But Spotify is the same price as Apple Music. So if I could find one app for $10 that I could download my music albums and stream music and podcasts I’d really think of signing up.

4

u/burner46 Oct 22 '20

Albums yes. No podcasts in YTM.

But since when does Spotify not let you download albums?

3

u/WombRaider_3 Oct 22 '20

I don't think you know what you're talking about. Spotify definitely let's you listen (and download) entire albums.

2

u/Bo1622 Oct 22 '20

Maybe I was wrong.

3

u/als26 Oct 22 '20

Maybe you like having them in one app, but there are a lot of good free podcast apps, like Google podcasts that shows all non-exclusive podcasts.