Google Home never plays the right version of a song

[RichardA]

If I ask Google to play a song it ALWAYS plays remixes or live versions. Even if I ask for the original version I still get something weird. It has gotten worse more recently too. I know I can cast but that defeats the object of Google Home. I know I'm not the only person suffering with this but I haven't been able to find a solution. Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated!

[lilaundgelb]

Hi Muddi. I have been sending examples and reports (from my Nest) to Google tech support for months. Here are some of the examples I've shared with them:

• “play Common People by Pulp”
• Google says: “I don’t know. But I found these results on search
• ”“play Common People”
• Correct Version: “Common People” from the album “Different Class”
• Played Version: “Common People (Live Glastonbury Festival)”

• “play Sugar Sugar by The Archies”
• Correct Version: “Sugar Sugar” (Single, 1969)… or pretty much any of 100 compilations of 60’s music or bubblegum pop
• Played Version: “Sugar Sugar (Sped Up, Instrumental)”

• “Play It’s Your Thing by the Isley Brothers”
• Google says: “I don’t know. But I found these results on search”
• “Play It’s Your Thing”
• Correct Version: “It’s Your Thing” from the album “It’s Our Thing” (or, really, any Isley Brothers compilation)
• Played Version: “It’s Your Thing (Studio Rio Version)”

• “Play Dead Flowers by The Rolling Stones”
• Correct Version: “Dead Flowers” from the album “Sticky Fingers”
• Played Version (sometimes): “Dead Flowers” from the album ”Remakes and Outfakes” by the band “The Rolling Clones”
• Played Version (other times): “Dead Flowers (Live at Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia)”

• “Play Never Going Back Again by Fleetwood Mac”
• Google says: “I don’t know. But I found these results on search”
• Correct Version: “Never Going Back Again” from the album “Rumors”
• Played Version (sometimes): “Never Going Back Again (Early Demo)”
• Played Version (sometimes): “Never Going Back Again” by the band “Fleetwood Mad”

• “Play Second Hand News by Fleetwood Mac”
• Google says: “I don’t know. But I found these results on search”
• Correct Version: “Second Hand News” from the album “Rumors”
• Played Version: “Never Going Back Again (Early Take)”

• “Play Fathoms Below from the Little Mermaid”
• Correct Version: “Fathoms Below” from the Little Mermaid Soundtrack
• Played Version (sometimes): “Fathoms Below (Japanese Version)”
• Played Version (sometimes): “Fathoms Below (From Disney Movie)” from the album “Good Night Songs - Disney Lullaby”

• “Play Oh Boy by Buddy Holly”
• Correct Version: “Oh Boy” from the album “The ‘Chirping' Crickets” (or, really, any Buddy Holly compilation)
• Played Version (sometimes): “Oh Boy! (Undubbed Version)”
• Played Version (sometimes): “Oh Boy! (Overdubbed Version)”

[ExpatRubz]

Feeling the same regret, TBH. Still having the same problems and now I can't even rely on Google's alarm to go off in the morning. It gets worse & worse. *shrug* I bought this stuff less than a year ago. 

[RichardA]

We have issues with turning lights on and off now sometimes. Can hardly connect to Nest hub camera etc

[Lbw]

irritating

[rsf]

Had a Temptations song going through my head but I had trouble with the lyrics. So I asked google to play the song. Amazingly, it read my mind and played just the instrumental just to aggravate me.

[Lbw]

funny but annoying 

[rsf]

And something else. The lights of the minis and the home have been staying on as if listening.

When I searched Help for a resolution, Google said to unplug to reset, and then do it 10 more times. Apparently, they need to be deprived of nourishment frequently. Should I also water board it?

[Mlsberens]

Having this problem as well. I ask Google to play literally any song and it will play an instrumental version, or another language. Extremely frustrating and I am very close to switching back to Alexa. Like very close. Any updates to this? I’ve seen others complain about this for years yet every response from Google appears to be “tell me more, I’d like to look into this further”. FIX IT NOW or we are all switching. 

[Lbw]

we are all annoyed because this has been going on forever and nobody is doing anything and people just keep asking us the same questions over and over. For example I will say "play song five by band 1 to 3." It will then play some random live version of the song or a cover band version of the song. Sometimes it plays the actual song but that seems to be more often with bands that are not quite as popular.

like i just asked it to play Fool on the hill by paul mccartney and it gave me a live version, not the studio album version.

[CrimeLord]

I posted back in April that Muddi is a troll account. If not, Muddi has brilliantly figured out he doesn't have to do anything except come on this forum every few months and ask for more information. The ultimate "do-nothing" formula. It's a winning strategy, assuming his bosses are oblivious. If he worked for me, I'd fire him in a heartbeat. 

Muddi, if you are human, fix this. There is enough information in this forum that a barely-sentient grapefruit could figure out the issue.  

[Bsizzle]

I just found this thread. This has been happening to me for 3 years. It is unbelievably frustrating  I linked Apple Music.

I’m at my sister-in-laws’ house right now. I ask Alexa to play something and she plays it without issue.  

To be honest, when I move next year, I’m probably going to switch everything to Alexa. That’s how frustrating it is. I even thumbs down the crap remixes and they continue to pop up.

[Lbw]

yes, that thumbs down thing is kind of annoying because he doesn't actually do anything

[Cbeau7]

If the engineers at google can’t replicate a glitch that seemingly all google consumers have experienced when requesting music on any google device that’s linked to literally any music subscription on earth (as this thread documents clearly), y’all must be using an Alexa.
Please fix this. The very first skill listed for google home products is to play music. If these products rarely play what you ask for, no matter how specific you are and regardless of what music platform you use, then they do not work as advertised - which seems to me like a pretty major legal problem for google.

[RichardA]

And when it 0lays the wrong song and you say "hey Google, don't play this song again" the first thing it does is play the song you told it not to. 

It feels like it is doing it on purpose so we switch to You Tube music - apparently, that works perfectly. 

[RichardA]

I just looked at the date I started this topic - 16th January 2022! Still not sorted. Muddi still asking the same pointless questions. 

[stilljammin313]

Muddi is literally an NPC. A poorly coded one at that. The same deaf, ESL interns that programed the song selection service are probably the same geniuses that coded this "person" and it's ability to filibuster us with irrelevant, already answered questions.

[VileTo]

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3703729/whats-going-on-with-google-assistant.amp.html

[Foamymonkey]

I've been having the same issues, it also doesn't like to play any of my playlists but instead public ones

I ask for "I want my tears back by nightwish" and it plays the instrumental

I ask for "thunderstruck by Ac/DC" and I get a cover version 

[Foamymonkey]

*this happens on both my phone (Huawei P20 pro) and my nest mini

[RichardA]

In the car yesterday I was using Android Auto and my wife and I were choosing tunes using the Google Assistant. It got every song right. Why does it work when I'm not on my home network but doesn't when I'm home?

[Poulifon]

Hi, same problem here. It was quite fun to get through all the messages just to discover there's still no solution 😕 
I tried in English or in French, the same issue occurs on my Nest Hub. If you have favourite songs or it happens on songs you like to go back to quite often, I could recommend using the Spotify option to block the song or artist you don't want to listen to. Since you're not asking Google to do it, it blocks GA from going back to the wrong version.

[Neuxufbfidjrbru]

Is there a class action against alphabet over these things yet? Between this issue and the grouped volume feature that was removed, Google home and nest devices are basically Bluetooth speakers that can also tell you the weather and make animal sounds. Not exactly the full feature set that we all paid for.

[CoryR92]

I agree. These devices aren't cheap either. Since owning my Google homes and hubs, new features have been introduced but many have also been removed. The few features that now remain hardly work. When compared to Alexa, Google assistant just seems dumb.

[notcasey]

+1, I'm unable to get assistant to play the actual version of _extremely_ popular songs.

I am using Apple music.

Prompting "Play the song Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine" plays a jazz version by "Jazz Against the Machine," no matter how much specificity I add.

Similarly, trying to play "Work" by Rihanna will only play a karaoke version.

I think this is possibly somehow related to explicit tracks, but it will play other explicits without issue, and I do not have any safe-search enabled.

This issue has gotten significantly worse in the last few months, to the point of using them outside of Bluetooth functionality pretty useless. I'm ready to replace them with something from any company but Google.

[Flybass89]

Just adding my 2 cents - happens with the built in voice assistant on our Google nest wifi. Constantly getting remix or live tracks for any requested song. Adding “original” does nothing. Like all Google products - another piece of unsupported crap

[lkralph]

This is still an issue.  I've tried everything I can think of to get my 4 Nests to play original album versions of songs and they ALWAYS play a live or remix version.  If I ask them to play the album version of a song, the entire album will play or they tell me it can broadcast it to my Roku.   I have Apple Play.  At first they will usually play the version I want and from then on they play something weird.  Here's a good example:  Chelsea Morning by Joni Mitchell.

[Tokiloshe]

Same issue for me too. Pathetic that it's been so long with no resolution. This is a paid service. The other thing that is not good is that it constantly plays the music video version of the song. This includes random commentary from the artists or sound effects associated with the video. These make no sense when just listening to the audio. Ytmusic premium via all Google assistant initiations...

[pfdm]

Almost 2 years later and the issue is still happening with me. It was happening on Spotify, it is still happening now that I switched to Apple Music. In fact, it seems it became worse. 

[rapha590]

It is 2023 and this is still an issue. I've been reading this thread for some time now, even registered on this forum just so I could write this. Muddi's lack of ability to provide any sort of direction is infuriating to say the least. Have you guys been experiencing the same kind of issue, still?

[Jovee]

Yes, not only is it still happening, but it's worse now. I will request a song with the song name and artist and what platform to play it on, and it plays whatever the heck it wants. I now think it's on purpose. It's pushing whatever they're getting payed to push.

[Fgm93]

Yep. Still happening…. 

[stilljammin313]

Still a problem

[Lbw]

yep, same old same old issue

[Morgles]

Hi Muddi.

Have you any role here apart from popping in every few months and asking the same questions again and again?

If you read through the thread you will see that the issue and the variables around it have been very well described by the community.

I have some questions for you.

Are you a Google employee?

If not, does anyone know, is this community thread actually visited by anyone with the capability of fixing this issue, ie a Google employee?

[Lbw]

nobody cares.

I have a whole new problem now. I ask it to play one specific song which it does but then plays a totally random song right after that. i've done this twice. it played the same song the first time but then played two different songs each time and there's no connection between them at all. It's not the same artist or anything.

[Lbw]

• yeah it's just all sorts of new nonsense every day I ask it to play certain song which it does play but then after that it just plays some random song that has nothing to do with the song before.

[Cbeau7]

Great news y’all! I figured out a fix!

Step 1: unplug your google device.

Step 2: throw google device directly into dumpster.

Step 3: buy an Alexa.

For the record, I had several google home devices (all linked to an Apple Music subscription) for two years and dealt with this issue every day. 
But after following these 3 easy steps I haven’t had a single problem requesting a song using the exact same Apple Music subscription! Wow!

Thanks Muddi!

[buckrussell]

i read somewhere that google feeds you the live versions of the music because it's cheaper for them. no clue if it's true but my anecdotal evidence shows that it ALWAYS chooses a live version of a song.

i was already in the process of completely getting google out of my life. my "smart" speakers are the last hold out and the convenience is far outweighed by the frustration of it not actually being "smart". we really should class action lawsuit them over the false advertising.

google has REALLY fallen off lately. they've never been firing on all cylinders but lately it's like they flat out ran out of gas.

[Lbw]

And it's sad that we're on here talking about it and nobody is even reading this stuff. And I give feedback like every single day but it's obviously going nowhere

[notcasey]

For visibility, I've raised this issue in a support ticket with Google directly, and they have been utterly unhelpful and are pulling the same behavior as seen in this thread of blaming transcription, networking, anything you can think of that ISN'T assistant just being... bad.

I've reinstalled the app, retrained the voice model, re-linked Apple music, and (repeatedly) answered all of their questions with zero progress. 

They had me send a video demonstrating the problem, and then came back with the response that "My senior team has noticed on the video you sent, you're trying to get a specific song like the studio version when you say the command for a song and that most probably will not happen unless you say the specific name of the song on the music service to get the specific song you are looking for," seemingly disregarding that I tried specifying the artist and album (and "studio version") in the very clip I sent them.

They are now asking for the model and firmware of my router, as if that is relevant to the response Google Assistant provides.

Let this be a cautionary tale–never buy Google hardware.