Amazon’s long-rumored on-demand music streaming service is now available. The company is launching its new service as Amazon Music Unlimited, a on-demand competitor to the likes of Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal and Google Play Music.
Unlike the plethora of competitors, Amazon has tried to differentiate its service, primarily through price: Music Unlimited will be available to Amazon Prime Members for $7.99 per month or $79 per year, which is cheaper than the premium options from Spotify or Apple Music. In addition, those who own Amazon’s Echo device can get the service for only $3.99 a month.
Amazon’s new Music app has been completely redesigned for a fresher, cleaner typography, more straightforward navigation, and a focus on artist imagery and album art. They also include some idiosyncratic features such as the ability to automatically download music that the app thinks you’d like in the background, so you’ll always have something to listen to offline, as well as lyrics integration.
Amazon’s main selling point for Music Unlimited seems to be its tight integration with Echo devices and the Alexa voice assistant. Not only do Echo owners have access to a cheaper version of the service, they can request songs from Music Unlimited in a variety of ways just using their voices. Alexa can pull up the “latest song” from an artist, play music based on a requested mood or time period, or even find songs from snippets of lyrics. Amazon also says that the service learns as the owner uses it more, and its suggestions will be more aligned to his or her tastes.
The on-demand streaming music service world is fiercely competitive, with Spotify and Apple commanding the lion’s share of attention and paying subscribers. But Amazon has a compelling option with Music Unlimited — especially if you own an Echo — and it has the deep pockets to ride out the market and pony up for exclusives if it needs to, since it doesn’t have strong stance against the concept like Spotify. This is probably just the first iteration of Amazon’s take on an on-demand music service, and there’s plenty more to come in the future.
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