Googbye playlists, I used you constantly
I’ve had a playlist for my kids on Google Play Music that has been in use for I’d say about four years at this point. Maybe less. Every night when I put the kids to bed it’s story time (me reading, mom reading,) we each sing them a bedtime song, and then I ask google to play a playlist designed to knock ’em out.
A couple of days ago my Google Play Music playlists stopped working when i asked smart speakers to play them. I went in the Android app and got notification that Google Play Music was going away – it’d been on the periphery of my radar but whatever, it’s a name change and an app change and all I use it for is to play music and playlists on my Home speakers.
Playlists had stopped working, they were there, I could play them in app, which was telling me it was shutting down. I did the transition to YT Music as it suggested and changed the default in Home. Playlists still did not work.
I asked on Twitter, got a lot of responses and finally directed to chat where I’m told that nope, no more playlists. Oh, I can open up the YT Music app on my phone and cast a playlist to a speaker, and I can ask for any song in that playlist to be played and it works, but this is a series of songs, in a specific order that my very picky children required in that order.
Oh well, no more. Just spent about 40 minutes with the Twitter team and chat support to find that out.
Should you wish to get the playlists back, please go to your smart speaker and say “hey google, send feedback” and let them know you’d like playlist support with Home and YT Music.
I guess during a pandemic, on the first day of remote school in which it was a stressful day, it’s probably a good lesson for the kids that Google will always find a way of taking what you love, renaming it, and destroying the functionality of it.
