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I have Alexa-controlled speakers at home and I have a very frustrating problem that I can't fix: If I ask 'Alexa, play 90s Indie Music', it *ALWAYS* says 'Playing Oasis Live' (then plays Oasis live obviously). If I then ask a second time, it always then plays what I initially asked for. It's a minor irritation, but it's been going on for months. I have no idea why it does it but I want it to stop, and I can't find the solution online – so how do I do it?
TIA
What music app do you have Alexa connected to?
What music app do you have Alexa connected to?
Amazon Music
I've given up asking our Alexa speaker to play music. Even asking for a specific track and artist it would normally go off and play something entirely unrelated; completely ****ing useless.
Just use it as a Bluetooth connected speaker now and stream what I actually want to listen to from spotify on my phone.
I have Alexa-controlled speakers at home and I have a very frustrating problem that I can't fix: If I ask 'Alexa, play 90s Indie Music', it *ALWAYS* says 'Playing Oasis Live' (then plays Oasis live obviously). If I then ask a second time, it always then plays what I initially asked for. It's a minor irritation, but it's been going on for months. I have no idea why it does it but I want it to stop, and I can't find the solution online – so how do I do it?
TIA
To be fair, thats exactly what I would do if I was being told to do things all the time by people who thought I was there to serve (rather than observe) them 😉
I had an Amazon echo that randomly switched itself on, definitely no schedule set up, factory reset the thing etc - it still kept doing It. It was generally pretty buggy and shite, pissed me off so much that I got rid. I don't miss it.
I had an Amazon echo
I have two SONOS speakers – I just use the Amazon app to control them.
But the bit that is most likely to be buggy is the common component - Alexa.
Alexa has been a commercial disaster for Amazon - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/07/alexa-had-no-profit-timeline-cost-amazon-25-billion-in-4-years/
They are likely leaving this iteration to fester without any development awaiting the launch of - "Amazon is now banking on the impending release of a subscription-based gen AI Alexa to finally drive profits."
Enshittification.
I've no idea about Amazon Music, but on Spotify it'll always start at the beginning of a given playlist. "Alexa, play [music] on shuffle" fixes that.
BTW - it is *ONLY* on that particular playlist that it happens (it's an Amazon playlist/station), not one of mine. If I ask it to play anything else, it generally complies.
I was wondering if they are being paid by Oasis' record label to promote that particular playlist and they think I'll be interested as I like 90s Indie?
Odd, mine occasionally mishears my request and plays something else but not consistently. I know in the app you can view transcripts of what it heard (and you used to be able to mark if it was correct or not, not sure if you can still do that and I doubt it really helped anyway)
Odd, mine occasionally mishears my request and plays something else but not consistently.
Yeah I get that (especially when asking it to play TMM1 Radio), but the issue I posted about is regular – it happens every time (then works as expected when I ask for a second time), and it's not like they are similar-sounding playlists either!
If I ask 'Alexa, play 90s Indie Music', it *ALWAYS* says 'Playing Oasis Live' (then plays Oasis live obviously).
Clearly someone who wrote the parameters that it’s programmed to operate in thinks the answer to any question about naming ‘90’s Britpop or Indy bands is Oasis; I’m sure I’ve met some people who are deluded enough to believe that they are the only band that anyone should listen to.
I've given up asking our Alexa speaker to play music. Even asking for a specific track and artist it would normally go off and play something entirely unrelated; completely ****ing useless.
Friends of mine have one. I sit expressionless as one or the other gets increasingly frustrated as it refuses to play what they’re asking it to play. If I had such a device, I’d do the obvious thing and pick up my phone or tablet and select the album or just put it on shuffle - I don’t do playlists*.
*Maybe if I’d started when I first started putting music into iTunes/Apple Music, but I’ve got too much music in there now, and frankly I’m too lazy to start now. 🤷🏼♂️
It doesn't seem wildly different to any of Amazon's offerings. If you search for any given product on amazon it'll give prominence to all sorts of things you specifically didn't search for. They charge those vendors to be given prominence so even if you give up in frustration they've still made money from the search. Prime video is similar - even when you simply choose to browse between TV shows and Movies - if you choose 'movies' it offers you TV shows :-).
And that'll be the case with your Oasis playlist - you didn't ask for it, but you're not the only party with an interest in what the speaker plays. Someone is paying for that result to be served to your key word - it doesnt matter if you don't listen to it, Amazon has made money for offering you that instead of what you asked for
Theres an absolutely fascinating radio programme by Micheal Rosen about the instantaneous micro-auctions that happen with every search and internet request and how every word in every a search has a monetary value.
you could ask Alexa to play it for you- https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vm4q
EDIT - ironically - BBC Sounds seems to play the wrong episode when you press play LOL but podcast apps seem to work
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/word-of-mouth/id869276405?i=1000642663698