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You want to put multiple MP3 songs (or multiple MP3 albums) into a cart from digital music at Amazon.com with the idea of adding more later so you can pay for them in one transaction at the end. This was possible in the past, but Amazon has made some changes since then, and now you can't purchase multiple items of music at once. But below are a few helpful suggestions for you that will make life just that little bit easier when you're shopping for multiple MP3 songs or albums on Amazon.
First off, to recap, you can still buy music by clicking on the button for that song or MP3 album as normal - if you're not sure how to do those things, see our separate illustrated tutorial here. Buying a single track or album still works just fine, the only downside is that you'd need to buy music items one at a time instead of putting them in a cart. If you are buying 10 songs, this means you will have 10 transactions on your payment method, which is annoying. But it all still works fine and you don't come out any worse off money-wise than when they had the cart. It just takes longer now having to pay for each item separately.
At the moment, clicking on the button for a track or album just gives you the option to buy it (or to abandon it). You can't even favorite it, or do anything else that will let you come back to tracks you like. This is something I'm hoping Amazon will change in the future. For now, let's move on to some ways to streamline your digital music purchases on Amazon.
A word of warning for those buying multiple individual songs
Please be aware that recent changes with Amazon's music store makes it all too easy to accidentally buy an entire album when really you might just be looking to buy a few individual songs from different albums. Don't worry - it is still easily possible to buy individual tracks. So if you're looking to buy one or more individual tracks, and not an entire album, take a look at our illustrated guide for how to buy MP3 music. In that guide, it shows with screenshots that you need to click on the 3 dots to the right of the track (this takes you to that individual track, not the whole album). As tempting as it is, do not click on "purchase options" at the top because that is only for the entire album.
Some suggestions for finding music you like on Amazon
There are some things you can do, besides the first steps of
- searching for specific tracks you like and
- making a list elsewhere of music tracks you want so you won't forget which ones to buy
Option 1: Shop by genre of music [see screenshot below]
One approach to finding the music you want is to take advantage of Amazon's ability to narrow down to a particular style of music, which allows you to browse for the genres of music you might like. Simply go to Digital Music on Amazon.com and you'll see screen like the one below; click on the desired genre on the link on the left (circled):
This might be helpful for you if your goal was to make a playlist.
Option 2: Find popular items in Amazon's music download store
Here is an approach you can try if you're looking for best sellers, new releases, and other items based on overall popularity. Firstly, go to Digital Music on Amazon.com and then on the new menu of "Amazon music" and then hover your mouse (don't click yet!) over the "Buy Music", as in screenshot below. If you don't see that menu it's because you're not in the Digital Music category of Amazon, so either
- use the link I gave in the previous sentence or
- make sure you've set the category to "Digital Music" on the left of your Amazon search bar
After you hover over the "buy music" button from the Amazon Music menu, it then gives you more options, as shown in the screenshot above: CD, Vinyl, Download Store, Amazon Music App, and Artist Merch Shop. I use the Download Store since it gives me an MP3 that I can then play on any device I like. I can put it on a USB stick and plug it into my car, for example. This way my favorite tunes are always available and it doesn't depend on my phone which might be low on battery so I don't want to use it to play music in the car, for example. But if you already use the Amazon Music App you may prefer to get your music through that instead.
Anyway, assuming you clicked on Download Store, you will get the option on the left to browse by best sellers, new releases, $3.99 albums, and more. You can see this in the screenshot below:
So if your goal was to easily find the latest music, for example for a party, then that is your best bet.
Money-saving tip: Don't get tricked by the pricing - it can vary between MP3 and CD
You might find the perfect album, but look carefully at the pricing! Take a look at the screenshot below for an example:
Digital music can be available in 3 main formats on Amazon.com: Streaming, MP3, and CD. Some items are only available in 1 or 2 formats. In most cases, the MP3 is what you're going for, since you get to play it on different devices. However, Amazon doesn't always guess correctly which format you are most likely to want. In the image above, I'm going to buy the MP3 format for $6.99 and you can see that the MP3 box has glowy edges to show it's the format being selected. If you want to switch formats, you can click on one of the other boxes before clicking on the Buy button. But in this particular case, you probably wouldn't want to switch to the CD format, since it costs $902.81 (yes, seriously!)
So the take-home message is, be aware the format you're selecting and what price it is. Switch formats if needed before clicking the buy button. Double-check the pricing when you're ready to press the buy button - fortunately, the pricing is also shown on the button.
To avoid this problem in the first place, begin your search via the digital music category on Amazon.com (not just by typing in the name of the song or artist in all categories). When you search the digital music category, it'll figure out you're most likely seeking an MP3 and it will almost always pre-set the format to MP3 and not to CD. But to be safe in case it doesn't, always make sure you check the format and the pricing before clicking on the buy button.
Conclusion
It's disappointing that Amazon.com has changed their system to eliminate the MP3 cart. You are therefore restricted to buying each track or album one at a time in multiple transactions, instead of placing the desired music in an MP3 cart and doing checkout in one transaction. In this article I've given a couple of ways in which you can browse for tracks you might like without having to search for a specific song title, but it doesn't get around the problem of having no MP3 cart anymore. I'm hoping this is something that Amazon might decide to change back in the future.
Although this article is about how to buy multiple MP3 tracks, we also have a more in-depth illustrated tutorial for how to buy an MP3 track from Amazon so if you don't know how to begin, this is the one for you. If you have already purchased an MP3 from Amazon in the past and wish to download it again, don't worry, we have a tutorial for that too. Did you know you can also find your reviews on Amazon? This is worthwhile if you ever want to take a look at purchases you reviewed.
