You might want to try out one of these solutions to make it more painless. I haven't tried them personally but thought it would be worth pointing out
http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/50311/print-playlist-from-google-play-music
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ssi.playlistbackup&hl=en
Mine is doing the same thing. Tap the upgrade button and nothing. Right back to the Google music home screen.
Edit.. Had to force a play services update and it works now.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.gms
re: Last.fm
Prime Player is a fantastic Chrome plug-in which includes in-browser scrobbling support.
Plenty of scrobbling options on Android. Personally I use Simple Last.fm Scrobbler which seems a lot less crashy than Last.fm's official app.
The Moto E goes on sale all the time:
That should serve you well.
You may want to give doubleTwist CloudPlayer a try. It works in a similar way to GPM but streams from Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive, which have open APIs and no DRM restrictions:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.doubleTwist.cloudPlayer
Note: I'm the doubleTwist co-founder :) If you give CloudPlayer a try, let me know your thoughts. It comes with a free 30-day trial.
I think you're talking about the Windows 8 (store) app right? I tried the new version but the fact that it is a windows 8 app limits its functionality in two ways:
This is the program I was talking about. It isn't actually called GMusic, my bad.
Which version of Opera are you using? I have a feeling the way Google Music is written might be giving Opera trouble rendering it correctly.
Edit: and just to be sure, an extension like this doesn't change the scrollbar's appearance, right?
Here in the UK I don't have any radio features of Google Play Music on both the browser and the iPhone app. When I was using a US proxy though and I went on the Google Play Music website on my laptop the radio features appeared and I absolutely hated it - they were on the iPhone app too. I hated everything about it. No more instant mixes (which are incredibly accurate). I want Google Play Music to be just storage for my music I've uploaded, nothing more. I turned off the proxy and went on the Google Play Music on my laptop again a few days later to see if the new features went and sure enough they did. Not instantly though. I can't recall how long it took, may have been a few hours or days but either way I no longer have the radio features. So I make this suggestion to you. If you're in the US or another country with Google Radio features (even though it says it's supported in the UK, weird) then go on a proxy (I used Zenmate extension for Firefox) and go to United Kingdom location (for me this country is premium so you may have to look for another UK proxy) (I just turned the proxy off as I am in UK) and then go on Google Play Music on your computer. Hopefully your radio features will go soon after and you will have Instant Mixes back. Post back your findings here and let me know. Hope this helps you and others.
For audiobooks, I use Smart AudioBook Player, it lets you adjust playback speed. I've never desired to speed up music.. that sounds like an odd preference, but to each their own.