# Why does Amazon think every piece of music is a ‘song’?



## Nickmb (Feb 16, 2019)

Our Alexa when asked to play e.g. Mozart will announce “playing songs by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from Spotify”. This irritates me for some reason. Where has this illiteracy come from and can we get the mighty Jeff to do something about?


----------



## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Big problem on Spotify and other streaming services too. You’d think the universally accepted term would be “track” considering there is lots of non-classical music that does not feature singing. Strange.


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I wonder if Alexa says, "Searching for comic books by Leo Tolstoy."


----------



## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

The programming is aimed at the biggest market. Sadly, we aren't it.


----------



## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

The Amazon Music (and company) “song” thing really doesn’t work well for classical, but as ACB says, it’s just “tracks” and even though it’s clunky, I am able to organize “My Music” in a fairly adequate fashion. Maybe because I have a CD collection on which to practice my curatorial skills, I don’t care so much about the messiness of my Amazon Music HD “collection” such as it is. What I care about more is the lack of discographic information. I like to know the venue and date of a recording and even the specs of the recording equipment used. Record companies that cater to audiophiles routinely provide these data. I usually only buy that kind of CD. And then there are the liner notes that you don’t get through the streaming service. Recently listening to some early music, Amazon didn’t even identify the ensemble playing it, let alone the info of interest to many CM enthusiasts. But Amazon Music HD does have an increasing number of 24-bit lossless files of classical music, and they sound to me as good as my CDs.


----------



## TMHeimer (Dec 19, 2019)

I don't think it's just Amazon. I'm looking for a publisher for an unaccompanied clarinet solo I wrote and the word "songs" pops up a lot. As well, in googling pretty much all the music stores in the U.S. (and much of the world) for marketing my book, I have found that maybe 80% of them sell guitars, bass, drums and maybe pianos. These things tend to play a lot of "songs". I often wonder how many people in the world play guitar. And how many guitars hang on music stores' walls.


----------



## MissKittysMom (Mar 2, 2017)

I blame Steve Jobs and the iPod. "5000 songs in your pocket!" The concept of "tracks" disappeared overnight, along with any understanding of capacity based on minutes. Beethoven 9th symphony equals about 20 "songs."

On the other hand, my music collection includes birdsongs of North America, so those really are songs, but more like Satie and his miniatures.


----------



## Enthalpy (Apr 15, 2020)

Why does Amazon think every piece of music is a ‘song’?

Because only songs bring money. Same for Youtube.

Correspondingly, Youtube regularly forgets to mention the composer. They mention the interpret as if she or he had created everything, following the bad habits of pop music.


----------



## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

The tyranny of the majority


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Why does Amazon list CDs for 900 dollars? Do they think someone will buy one?


----------



## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Ah, back to the whole "What is the best way to catalog my Classical Music collection?"

Composer, or Artist?

Thank goodness for iTunes search: "Mozart", "Dorati", "Hahn", "Quartet", "Camarata", "Cello".

Instant.


----------



## BobBrines (Jun 14, 2018)

I use Foobar as my music player. It contains a pretty good metadata editor. I believe JRivers does also and perhaps others. It takes me some 15 minutes to rearrange and add the metadata on a fresh CD or download to get it my way. I have three basic library views:

Composer-Work-Orchestra-Conductor-Performer-Movement
Composer-Album-(Work)-Movement
Artist-Album-Song 

I also have a tag I call "opus" that I use to keep track of Vivaldi, Telemann, Handel RV TWV numbers etc.

The last one exists because at the average pop music listener level no one knows or cares who wrote the song. Just who is singing the cover. Barry Manilow sings "I write the songs----" Yea. Sure.


----------



## NeilP (Aug 25, 2020)

I agree "tracks" would be better or even "pieces"


----------



## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

starthrower said:


> Why does Amazon list CDs for 900 dollars? Do they think someone will buy one?


There's a CD I recorded that someone is trying to sell for almost $1000. What's hilarious is that it is easily found and available for the perfectly reasonable price of $15 from existing Amazon stock!

Anyway, yeah it's Pop Songs Über Alles as far as the world of digital music is concerned. I agree Steve Jobs and his "5000 Songs!" iPod nonsense is partly to blame, but sadly the usage of calling every track or piece of music a "song" predates the iPod by a considerable margin.

It pains me when even Google will show something like the Matthew Passion as a "song by Johann Sebastian Bach."


----------



## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

I love it when someone asks me, “What song did you just play on the piano? It sounded great!” and I say, “Well, I wasn’t singing so I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The response is usually a blank stare. I know, I know, it’s really pedantic.


----------



## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

starthrower said:


> Why does Amazon list CDs for 900 dollars? Do they think someone will buy one?


I reckon it's a deliberate money-laundering thing by third-party sellers. Buy our drugs/Kalashnikovs/hedge fund, but pay for it by purchasing THIS CD.

Well, that's how I do it......


----------

