It would be handy to be able to preview / audition an album without having to open the album and play it. For example with Tidal “What’s new”… some look potentially interesting but I have to click them, which takes me away from the what’s new screen, then play something from the album. In doing so I change my queue. If I don’t like it, I go back, pick another album… and so on.
It would be useful from the first screen to be able to preview the album without changing screens and without changing my queue. Maybe it plays a section of the most popular tracks from the album or 15 seconds of the middle of each with fade in-between… not sure how to make it a pleasurable or representative experience. But it would be useful.
My use case today… I click on Tidal, what’s new, masters. There are a bunch of albums there that I’ve never heard of. About 15 today. All laid out in the grid format. I know they are from Tidal, I can see * ratings, artist name and album name. The biggest visual clue I can see is the album cover - but “does it look interesting” isn’t the best way of discovering new music. I can make inferences about the albums - the one with the guy in a cowboy hat, well that’s probably rap. Right?
Genre may help me - I see that something with a beach scene is actually jazz, for example. But the albums have picks, and a “play picks” button when you open it. Not all do though. So today I clicked on each album in turn. Read the tags, played a bit of a couple of tracks, closed it, clicked on the next album. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat…
So it isn’t so much Roon guessing what album I want to play. I’ll tell it which to preview. But it is then a case of being able to have a way of playing the picks, or playing the tracks and skipping without having to open each album up.