Rhythmbox won't stop playing music

This is by design. The idea is that the music doesn't stop just because the queue has been emptied.

If you want it to stop after the last track then set up a playlist instead. Go to the Music -> Playlist menu for some of the options.

This is deliberate? Are you serious? And the only way around it is to only listen to set playlists?

I should add that someone on ubuntuforums claimed that he did NOT see the same behavior when when he made play queues, so does that mean there's an old version or something that doesn't have this "feature"?

That's what it says in the user manual, direct quote:
"
Play Queue Source

  Play queue is a source designed to store temporary the next tracks you
  want to play. When you add a track in Play Queue,
  Rhythmbox Music Player will automatically switch to this
  source, after the tracks played.

  Once a track been played, it will be automatically removed form the Play
  Queue Source.
  Once the Play Queue is empty, Rhythmbox Music Player will play the source which was
  played before.
"
I see this behaviour as far back as Ubuntu 6.06, so it was probably there since the play queue was introduced, though I've no idea when that was.

Some more recent discussion on the development list.
http://mail.gnome.org/archives/rhythmbox-devel/2006-October/msg00064.html

Also see http://mail.gnome.org/archives/rhythmbox-devel/2006-June/msg00101.html

I must say that this also took me by surprise at first. I'm still not 100% comfortable with it.

I find it totally evil that Rythmbox will play something else that I DID NOT ASK FOR after it finishes playing the playlist. If I had wanted it played, I would have put it on the playlist. When the playlist is empty, STOP PLAYING, DAMMIT!!!!

s/playlist/play queue/

I find it totally evil that Rythmbox will play something else that I DID NOT ASK FOR after it finishes playing the play queue. If I had wanted it played, I would have put it on the play queue. When the play queue is empty, STOP PLAYING, DAMMIT!!!!

I mixed up playlist and play queue the first time around because I never actually use playlists in this program. Does Gnome have any music player apps that are less than twice as annoying as Amarok?