Amazon Gives Prime Subscribers Access to 100 Million Songs

[MacRumors]

Amazon today announced an expansion of Amazon Music, which is now available almost in full to Amazon Prime subscribers. Amazon is providing Amazon Prime users with access to the full catalog of 100 million Amazon Music songs, up from the original two million songs that were available.

Amazon Prime subscribers are not getting unlimited on-demand access to Amazon Music tracks, but the full catalog is available when using shuffle mode. Songs are ad-free, and users can create playlists that are tailored to personalized listening preferences. Shuffle play is available for any artist, album, or playlist.

The experience will be similar to other services like Pandora that offer radio station-based content rather than in-demand access to all songs. Amazon Prime's new feature will not directly compete with Apple Music because Apple Music does offer on-demand music, but it could cause customers who prefer radio stations and playlists to swap over.

Amazon is not charging Prime subscribers more for the Amazon Music access, and Prime continues to be priced at $14.99 per month or $139 per year.

Along with access to the full Amazon Music catalog, Amazon is offering Prime users access to popular ad-free podcasts and new Amazon Exclusive podcasts, with full information available on Amazon's blog post announcing the changes.

Article Link: Amazon Gives Prime Subscribers Access to 100 Million Songs

 

[meady100]

I must be cheap but I'd rather listen to the radio for free, with access to a trillion songs!

 

[BrownyQ]

Oh that's actually pretty nice.

Doubt I'll ever use it, since I curate my own library (stubborn holdover from the era of iPods and iTunes), but I know family members might take advantage, since the Prime account is shared.

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

Too expensive especially if you live near an Amazon distribution center/warehouse where even non-Prime users get their stuff in 1-2 days. Prime still has an atrocious movie selection as well, arguably the worst of all services.

 

[rjp1]

Apple Music is king.

 

[vikingjunior]

You Tube music has the same thing.

 

[Wildkraut]

Oh that's actually pretty nice.

Doubt I'll ever use it, since I curate my own library (stubborn holdover from the era of iPods and iTunes), but I know family members might take advantage, since the Prime account is shared.

I was once a such person too, but someday i realized that it’s just waste of lifetime curating libraries. In the past i used to Mp3Tag my files and add highres covers to the albums, etc. what a waste of time.

 

[lysingur]

It's mostly about playlists. A lot of people stick with Spotify because of how good their playlists are, which also happens to be Apple Music's weakest point.

If Amazon Prime can continue to curate its playlists, I see a lot of conversions happening.

 

[miamialley]

because Apple Music does offer on-demand music

What does this mean? How is it not on-demand?

 

[belvdr]

What does this mean? How is it not on-demand?

Per the original post, it's like a radio station. It's not songs you add to a playlist and select at your leisure. More here:

Amazon Music expands its Prime benefit to offer a full catalog of music and new experiences for podcast lovers

We’ve expanded our music benefit for Prime members to bring them 100 million songs in shuffle mode, the most ad-free top podcasts available, and features that make it easier to discover new content in the Amazon Music app—all at no additional cost to their membership.

www.aboutamazon.com

 

[locovaca]

So, price hike in 6 months and they’ll tout all the “new benefits” like Thursday night football and more music to justify it.

 

[cicalinarrot]

$139? Seriously?
I’m so glad I just got out of Prime now that it went from 36€ to 50 a year in here.

 

[tufapshakur]

Apple Music is superior in every way

 

[mrr]

Cool. I could use a hundred million songs.

 

[RWray]

This change is a major downgrade, not an upgrade. All my personal playlists are gone. Basically classical music is unplayable (you can only "shuffle" Beethoven symphonies, for example). You cannot really download anything for offline use ("all access playlists" are a joke and one wonders if just a new form of payola). Please don't talk about this as an improvement for the prime music lover. It's a serious downgrade.

 

[thedarkhalf]

Oh that's actually pretty nice.

Doubt I'll ever use it, since I curate my own library (stubborn holdover from the era of iPods and iTunes), but I know family members might take advantage, since the Prime account is shared.

This is where I am at. I've invested way too much time and effort curating my library that using anything else just seems like I did all that for nothing.

 

[BuddyTronic]

Amazon today announced an expansion of Amazon Music, which is now available almost in full to Amazon Prime subscribers. Amazon is providing Amazon Prime users with access to the full catalog of 100 million Amazon Music songs, up from the original two million songs that were available.

Amazon Prime subscribers are not getting unlimited on-demand access to Amazon Music tracks, but the full catalog is available when using shuffle mode. Songs are ad-free, and users can create playlists that are tailored to personalized listening preferences. Shuffle play is available for any artist, album, or playlist.

The experience will be similar to other services like Pandora that offer radio station-based content rather than in-demand access to all songs. Amazon Prime's new feature will not directly compete with Apple Music because Apple Music does offer on-demand music, but it could cause customers who prefer radio stations and playlists to swap over.

Amazon is not charging Prime subscribers more for the Amazon Music access, and Prime continues to be priced at $14.99 per month or $139 per year.

Along with access to the full Amazon Music catalog, Amazon is offering Prime users access to popular ad-free podcasts and new Amazon Exclusive podcasts, with full information available on Amazon's blog post announcing the changes.

Article Link: Amazon Gives Prime Subscribers Access to 100 Million Songs

What? You get 100 million songs, but not really. You gotta listen to whatever they shuffle to you.

Dang - I just want to be able to listen to anything I want whenever I want, but I guess that's not how these games work!

 

[cochinet]

Does anyone know if HiFi (or HD, or whataver is called that Spotify just won't add) songs are included in this radioish "tier" ?

 

[garylapointe]

I must be cheap but I'd rather listen to the radio for free, with access to a trillion songs!

None of the radio stations you listen to have a trillion-song list that they play from.

I'd guess that your 100 favorite stations combined probably don't rotate through more than a few million songs.

Not suggesting that you sign up for Prime, just making an observation. I'll be checking it out, since I already pay for Prime.

 

[Spacetime Anomaly]

Make it a gazillion songs. Who cares if you can no longer listen to what you want?

This is an objective downgrade.

 

[garylapointe]

Since I've got Prime, I'll check it out. Maybe it's got some value to me...

 

[ProfessionalFan]

Make it a gazillion songs. Who cares if you can no longer listen to what you want?

This is an objective downgrade.

People that pay for Amazon Music Unlimited ($8.99 a month) can choose their songs.

 

[Spacetime Anomaly]

People that pay for Amazon Music Unlimited ($8.99 a month) can choose their songs.

So could Prime members until recently, albeit with a smaller library. Hence my downgrade comment.

 

[peccles]

I was happy with the 2M songs that I could listen to offline. Now they want $8.99/mo for offline listening. I’ll be dumping Prime.

 

[schneeland]

I was once a such person too, but someday i realized that it’s just waste of lifetime curating libraries. In the past i used to Mp3Tag my files and add highres covers to the albums, etc. what a waste of time.

Depends. Stuff disappears from streaming services (or never appears there), and in some areas, my own collection beats what current services offer. Also, the sorting into genres and lack of uniformly applied title case is pretty annoying (speaking mainly about Apple Music here, but Google Music and Spotify had their fair share of problems, too).
But in general, I agree: maintaining your own collection doesn't hold the value it used to. And I feel had solid streaming services been around in the 90s and 00s already, my collection would be much smaller.