Amazon Unveils Unlimited Music Service

Amazon Unveils Unlimited Music Service

Amazon today announced Unlimited Music, its new on-demand music streaming service. Key differentiators include what Amazon calls the service’s “breakthrough” pricing, and Alexa integration.

Like rival services—market leaders include Spotify and Apple Music—Amazon Unlimited Music offers unlimited access to a cloud-hosted music collection for a monthly subscription fee. It’s compatible with Android and iOS-based mobile devices, Windows PCs and Macs, the web, and other devices. (It’s available on Sonos and Fire TV as well, for example.) And Amazon claims a collection size, vaguely, of “tens of millions.” (Most rival services are now in the 30-40 million range, I believe.)

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So far, this is exactly what one would expect. But Amazon offers some interesting advantages over rival services.

The first is pricing: While anyone can subscribe to Amazon Unlimited Music for $10 per month, the standard rate found everywhere, Prime subscribers will save $2 per month, or $40 per year if they pay annually. That is, Prime subscribers will pay an addition $8 per month—or $80 per year—for Amazon Unlimited Music.

But you can save even more if you have a single Amazon Echo or other Alexa-based device. That is, if you don’t mind limiting Amazon Unlimited Music access to just one Alexa device, you can use a special “for Echo” version of the service for just $4 per month. That said, if you decide you want to keep using the service and access it on multiple devices, including Fire TV, iOS, Android, web, PC, Mac, Sonos and more, you’ll need to pay another $4 per month like other Prime subscribers.

Naturally, Amazon’s Echo and other Alexa devices are—wait for it—primed to use the new service.

“If you want a sense of the future of voice-controlled music, go ahead and ask Alexa for a free Music Unlimited trial, and play around on your Echo,” Amazon’s Jeff Bezos says in a canned statement. “If you don’t know the name of a song but know a few lyrics, if you want to hear songs from a specific decade, or even if you’re looking for music to match your mood, just ask.”

Amazon’s press release says you can ask Echo such things as “Alexa, play Sia,” “Alexa, play Green Day’s new song,” “Alexa, play the song that goes, ‘I was doing just fine before I met you'” (where Alexa will play, ‘Closer” by The Chainsmokers), and so on to start music playback. You can also trigger “side-by-side” playlists (“Alexa, play Side-by-Side with OneRepublic”) to play an artist and related artists.

While breaking into the streaming music business in a serious way will still prove difficult for Amazon, I think, this is a smart offering. I may just have to check it out.

 

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Conversation 19 comments

  • 399

    Premium Member
    12 October, 2016 - 7:15 am

    <p>So, does Prime Misic still exist and if so, what’s the difference?</p>

    • 5273

      Premium Member
      12 October, 2016 - 8:17 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#20247">In reply to maethorechannen:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Prime Music is still there. It looks like the main diffence is the song count. Prime Music historically claimed around 2 million songs. Unlimited claims tens of millions. Started my Unlimited trial, and big difference I see so far are more currated playlists from which to choose. Also of note, both services use the same Amazon Music mobile app (at least they do on iOS). The content in the Amazon Music app refreshed to reflect the Unlimited service.</p>

  • 674

    12 October, 2016 - 7:15 am

    <p>No mention of a family plan?</p>

  • 265

    Premium Member
    12 October, 2016 - 7:37 am

    <p>$14.99 Family Plan "coming soon".&nbsp; I wonder how it integrates the Amazon Music Cloud which allows you to upload all your digital music from whatever source?&nbsp; I don’t much like "streaming only" and this appears to allow Spotify like download for offline&nbsp;listening.&nbsp; Window Mobile doesn’t get an app.&nbsp; &nbsp;And the Amazoon web player doesn’t work on current W10M Edge.</p>

    • 383

      Premium Member
      12 October, 2016 - 12:58 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#20250">In reply to mmcpher:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Did they mention if that family pricing is for everyone or just Prime members?</p>

  • 6067

    12 October, 2016 - 8:07 am

    <p>I have moved my whole family over to Google Play Music’s family plan… the fact that it works with up to 6 accounts and they all get youtube red it is really a steal for $15/month… I was paying for Groove and buying it during sales (Pi day, Christmas promotion, etc) but the family plan google offers is just fantastic.</p>

  • 1143

    12 October, 2016 - 10:48 am

    <p>I think I will try this for 2 reasons:</p>
    <p>1. I am an Amazon Prime member.</p>
    <p>2. I used to pay for Live365. I can take that money and pay for Amazon Music unlimited since Live365 has went under.</p>
    <p>Also, I am using Amazon as my entertenment ecosystem (Movies, books, and music).</p>

  • 412

    Premium Member
    12 October, 2016 - 11:30 am

    <p>This is the moment I’ve been waiting for…the time to really look at my music services.&nbsp;<br /> <br /> I’m a long time Groove user, since the Zune Days. I love the desktop player and the fact I can use it on the XBOX One in the background while shuffling pictures with Plex.</p>
    <p>I am a Google Music User on the Family Plan with Red. Fantastic deal if only for commercial free YouTube but the music service is great and fast.&nbsp;</p>
    <p>Amazon Music Unlimited is attractive because I am in the Amazon ecosystem with Prime and three Echo’s. Plus it has apps (and nicely updated too) for Android iOS and Windows Desktop.&nbsp;</p>
    <p>Very hard decision as really, I don’t need 3 services but they all have their plus and minuses. I think Groove may be on the chopping block.</p>

  • 3264

    12 October, 2016 - 12:08 pm

    <p>This is really IMO just a me-too offering, and not something I’m especially interested in while i have Apple Music, Google Play Music and SiriusXM to choose from already.&nbsp; I think the next step are these services offering premium content which will differentiate the services and justify the prices they can charge.&nbsp; Offering the same content as everyone else at the same price, or even a little less as Amazon is doing, doesn’t mean much to me.</p>

  • 5534

    12 October, 2016 - 3:47 pm

    <p>To me, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to&nbsp;pay for&nbsp;a service that’s available for free. Everything I want or need is available for free either from&nbsp;FM radio or streaming services like iHeart Radio or Pandora.&nbsp;If I want to listen to a string of songs from the same artist (which I rarely ever do), I can search for that artist and play just those. But, to each, his own.</p>

  • 5485

    13 October, 2016 - 2:37 am

    <p>The family plan of Spotify is better. This convollutted pricing model is the future? The only thing worst than these kind of pricing models for the consumer was MS points princing scheme … yes MS even tried&nbsp;to impose its own currency in their closed system…</p>
    <p>PS: A cynical remark … if Spotify was an American company …</p>

  • 1143

    13 October, 2016 - 7:50 am

    <p>Do the all devices plan include the Echo?</p>

  • 5553

    14 October, 2016 - 3:23 am

    <p>Premium comments LOL</p>
    <p>So we are chopped liver ?</p>

  • 5553

    14 October, 2016 - 3:28 am

    <p>What a scam…paying for compressed music to listen to over an "Echo"</p>
    <p>?</p>

  • 514

    14 October, 2016 - 9:48 pm

    <p>I just used my echo to order the $3.99 version (30 day free trial to start).&nbsp; I’m listening to it (50’s oldies) as I write this — very nice.&nbsp; I had been using Prime Music since I got my first echo almost two years ago, and it’s been fine for my limited music preferences (disco, 50’s &amp; 80’s oldies).&nbsp; I now have 3 Alexa devices (an Echo, a Tap, and a Dot) — I think my subscriptions works from all of them for the one fee.&nbsp; If I wanted to use non-alexa devices (I don’t — the Dot can connect to any speaker system out there including Sonos), and as a Prime member it would cost me $8/month — I’ll pass on that.</p>
    <p>As I listen to the 50’s selections, I can ask Alexa to skip what I don’t like, or add a song to my personal library from which I can listen in any order I please.</p>

  • ariana

    17 February, 2017 - 4:53 am

    <p>Everyone wants to enjoy the music for free. Even though they want free music but they enjoy the same music each and every time like same artist and albums.Here I am sharing the best source to get unlimited music for free. Download your favorite music collections whenever you want for free. Check it out for <a href="http://topfreetorrentsites.com/&quot; target="_blank">torrenting websites for music</a>.</p>

  • ashunmm

    08 March, 2019 - 8:51 am

    <p>You can enjoy unlimeted lyrics on <a href="https://lyricsbits.com/&quot; target="_blank">LyricsBits</a></p>

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