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Music Businesses

Amazon Prime Now Comes With a Full Music Catalog of 100 Million Songs and Ad-free Podcasts (techcrunch.com) 61

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Amazon today announced a new benefit for its Prime members which could lure some subscribers away from other music services, like Apple Music or Spotify. From a report: The company said it will now offer Prime subscribers a full music catalog with 100 million songs, instead of the previously more limited selection of just 2 million songs, and will make most of the top podcasts on its service available without ads. In addition, the Amazon Music app is getting a revamp, which includes a new "Podcast Previews" feature that will allow customers to listen to short clips as a way to discover new podcasts they may like. The move is a direct shot at streaming music competitors, especially Spotify, which has been moving into the podcasts market as a means of generating additional revenue. But Spotify's paying subscriber base is growing frustrated with the fact that they still have to listen to podcast ads, despite paying for the service. Amazon Music's promise of ad-free podcasts along with a full music catalog could make for a compelling alternative, the retail giant hopes.

Among the ad-free podcasts are shows from top brands like CNN, NPR, The New York Times, and ESPN. Other ad-free shows include the Wondery catalog of podcasts, like "Dr. Death," "SmartLess," and "Even the Rich," and new Amazon Exclusive shows including "MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories;" "Suspect: Vanished in the Snow;" "COLD Season Three: The Search for Sheree;" "Killer Psyche Daily;" "I Hear Fear," narrated by Academy Award-nominated actress Carey Mulligan; and a weekly bonus episode of "The Old Man and the Three," hosted by former NBA player JJ Redick. The Amazon Exclusive podcast series "Baby, this is Keke Palmer," from the actress and entrepreneur Keke Palmer (NOPE) also debuts today.
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Amazon Prime Now Comes With a Full Music Catalog of 100 Million Songs and Ad-free Podcasts More

Amazon Prime Now Comes With a Full Music Catalog of 100 Million Songs and Ad-free Podcasts

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  • Great benefit! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blahbooboo ( 839709 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2022 @11:15AM (#63015161)
    With rising price of music services, this will be a big draw to amazon prime

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 )
      Taken alone it is a nice benefit. It does seem though that Prime is gradually becoming both more expensive and more all-encompassing and I'd hate to lose the ability to individually choose best-of-breed services because Prime drove them out of business.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mridoni ( 228377 )

      Or not (from TFA):

      Prime members won’t be able to stream music on-demand without upgrading to the paid tier

      • Yeah, I just tried it out and it works like Pandora in that you pick a song that you want to hear, then it plays a 'suggestion' of something else based on that.

        In other words, it's useless
        • That stinks.We already had ability to play music hope this isnt a degradation now

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Xenx ( 2211586 )
            The catalog of songs available went from 2mil to 100mil, and podcasts. It's rather up to user preference whether it's an overall improvement. It's largely irrelevant to me, but if I was going to use the service at all it would be for the podcasts. So, it's an improvement here.
            • Before the change you could create playlist out of the 2m songs, and actually play those songs on the playlist, in the order you selected, and skip if you wanted. Now you can't.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Xenx ( 2211586 )
                Correct. But, you have to weigh that benefit against the larger catalog. Thats why I said it's up to user preference.
                • OK but how many? Imagine going to a restaurant, ordering antipasta, pizza and a brownie with ice cream, and actually getting Chinese dumplings and fajitas instead, and maybe a few more courses you MUST finish before you are allowed the brownie. Who has such a preference?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hAckz0r ( 989977 )

      Problem is every time you click on the screen it is asking for you to upgrade your subscription. I consider this very invasive nagware. One has to be careful not to click on "Upgrade" on Android because its not obvious how to make the "Upgrade" popup go away.

  • Prime Music is horrible (Score:3)

    by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2022 @11:22AM (#63015197)

    Spotify is king. Meanwhile, Prime Music has a horrible interface and requires a great number of questionable permissions which most likely would be used to track you on your phone and further target Amazon products/services to you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      I quit Spotify when their UI got worse and worse and they started pushing podcasts everywhere so you couldn't even get to your own music without scrolling through a page.

      Prime Music is.. Worse...

      • When I open Spotify on my CarPlay-equipped car: it shows me a list of crappy podcasts that I am never going to listen to. Ben Shapiro? Come on... I'd rather listen to Rick Astley on repeat.

    • Re:Prime Music is horrible (Score:4, Informative)

      by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2022 @11:37AM (#63015245) Journal
      Spotify will be raising its price [businessinsider.com] next year.

      If you don't think Spotify is tracking you, you might want to reconsider using it.

    • Spotify is king. Meanwhile, Prime Music has a horrible interface and requires a great number of questionable permissions which most likely would be used to track you on your phone and further target Amazon products/services to you.

      I tried Amazon music for a while but the lack of a stand-alone Linux app was a real annoyance (plus, it seemed to make worse musical decisions when left to wander).

    • Oh yes, the Prime Music interface is horrible. Horrible! I have to say, "Alexa! Play Driver's Seat!" and it does. I mean, what if I had a mouthful of mashed potatoes? I wouldn't be able to ask for my song for whole SECONDS!

      • Lol, what kind of asshole sits around talking to his audio player for every song? "Alex, play this, alexa play that, alexa now play this". Fuck that.

      • Oh yes, the Prime Music interface is horrible. Horrible! I have to say, "Alexa! Play Driver's Seat!" and it does.

        Just because you paid extra money for an Alexa to figure out how to use Prime Music for you doesn't mean the interface is good.

  • Yay (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    renting music is awesome!

    • You can listen for free over the air waves. But that comes with ads and usually someone talking between songs. It's not renting music, not even in the slightest. You're paying to stream music, ad free and gaining the ability to pretty much listen to anything you want any time you want. Something that has never once been remotely possible with traditional radio. The other option is buying the music and keeping your own massive library. In the end you'd pay many times more than just paying a streaming serv

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by xanthos ( 73578 )
        Agreed. For me, playlists quickly become boring and so I have gravitated to using Tune-In to find something interesting to listen to, especially the non-US based stations, many of which do not have some sort of commercial interruption after every song or two.

    • renting music is awesome!

      Music is so disposable, though.

      Of the nearly 1,000 CDs that I own, maybe 10 were in some sort of constant rotation. I've long left CDs behind and am with Apple Music, and I've found that I'll go back to those old stand-buys maybe once a year. But I'll listen to A State of Trance and Group Therapy weekly for the new music and maybe add a few tracks to the ever-changing playlist.

      The ability to listen to new performances of classical pierces is a joy, too. One of those CDs is maybe three months of Apple Music.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ebh ( 116526 )

        Me too. Of about 700 CDs that didn't have significant collectors' value, the few that weren't available on Apple Music, I ripped, then I donated the entire lot to the public library. Likewise, I donated about 1000 LPs to a local charity.

        It was an interesting exercise evaluating all these. Some things I thought would be really valuable turned out not to be, and there were some really pleasant surprises.

    • Uhh, it literally and provably is. Not sure if you've noticed but it won in the marketplace and it won for a reason. You're like those assholes who constantly make "beta was better than VHS" jokes. No, it wasn't. It literally was worse that's why it lost - people pick one metric (it had slightly better video quality) and act like that's the only metric that matters.

      Sorry, VHS was better than beta and we all like playing whatever music we want wherever we want without buying it.

      • It literally was worse that's why it lost - people pick one metric (it had slightly better video quality) and act like that's the only metric that matters.

        I think it's probably more accurate to say that Sony acted like that was the only metric that mattered, while ignoring all evidence and advice to the contrary, and that ultimately was its downfall. They refused to accept and adapt to the very real advantages in baseline recording time, cost, flexibility to trade quality for more recording time, etc. tha

  • Prime? Or Music Unlimited? (Score:4)

    by Balthisar ( 649688 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2022 @11:49AM (#63015291) Homepage

    Is this a new Prime Benefit? Or a Music Unlimited benefit? I got the email addressed to me as (trial) Music Unlimited subscriber, and it seemed applicable to Music Unlimited.

    • I am not an Unlimited subscriber and I received likely the same email.
    • It's not a benefit, what they've really done is remove playlists.

    • Is this a new Prime Benefit? Or a Music Unlimited benefit?

      Good question. I just logged into Prime Music (for the first time) and I couldn't figure out how to play music I want. Every album I chose asked me to upgrade to Music Unlimited. Maybe it's a USA only thing?

  • Reading the article prompted me to install and try out Amazon Music. It seemed to work fine, bit annoying that I couldn't see what was coming next or add something to play next (likely me not sure how the UI works). It did however have an ad smack in the middle of the now playing screen asking me to subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited. Is the Amazon Prime Music not unlimited?

    Aside for the ad, the UI is typical Amazon.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by splutty ( 43475 )

      The reason you can't queue your own songs, and that it just plays 'similar' songs after your first selection, is that you don't have Unlimited.

      And yes, the UI is typical Amazon, absolutely fucking atrocious.

  • I got a notice from Amazon this morning that this amazing new feature was available to me now. But I don't think you can listen to what you want out of that 100 million. You can generate a profile and Amazon will serve you stuff from that 100 million that they might think you'll like. Sort of like free Pandora. Maybe I misread it but that's what I thought it said.

    I pulled it out of my email trash. It says "More ad-free music, increasing from 2 million to over 100 million songs in shuffle mode". What is th

  • "Using dominant market power in one market to gain dominance in another", used to be a textbook example of abuse of monopoly power, right? It was exactly what Microsoft did in the browser wars.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kackle ( 910159 )
      "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you while I was peering down at my phone or talking to my Alexa or watching my Firestick."
  • 100 million songs is roughly 570 years or 14,881 fortnights of music.
  • The new 98 million songs are available in shuffle mode. You can't ask Alexa to play a song directly, apparently. So basically old Pandora without any ads.

  • Actually they just removed playlists (Score:3)

    by crobarcro ( 6247454 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2022 @12:59PM (#63015621)
    Actually what Amazon have done is just removed playlists from the basic tier. Before you could have a playlist, from the 2m songs, play them in the order you choose, and skip tracks etc. Now they've removed this functionality. Now it plays "songs from your playlist, and other similar songs" which you can't skip. So there's no benefit over Spotify. A bit shit.
  • They removed all the playlists. Its just a terrible pandora now. This is garbage.

  • Ugh, shuffle only unless you pay (Score:5, Informative)

    by magzteel ( 5013587 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2022 @02:34PM (#63016209)

    So I tried going on Amazon music and was immediately frustrated because I couldn't find a stinking "Play" button.
    There was only a "Shuffle" button. Apparently this is by design. From https://9to5toys.com/2022/11/0... [9to5toys.com]

    "Amazon Music goes free for Prime members, if you can live with shuffled tracks"

    "The changes to the Amazon Music catalog for Prime members do now come with some caveats, however. To still incentivize customers to subscribe to Music Unlimited for the full experience, those who do opt to go with the standard tier aren’t going to get the full access. Instead, all Prime members will be able to access the Amazon Music catalog through shuffling artists, albums, and playlists. So unfortunately you won’t be able to ping Alexa to play that specific song stuck in your head."

  • Followed by a price increase.

  • Can I return any of this crap they keep calling "benefits" for something actually beneficial, like a price decrease?

  • So, they gave us back what they once took away. I have to assume that there will just be another rug pull.

  • What is "a Full Music Catalog of 100 Million Songs" ?

    How does it differ from a Non-full Music Catalog of 100 Million Songs ?

    • > How does it differ from a Non-full Music Catalog of 100 Million Songs ?

      The Non-Full catalog includes 4'33".

  • Ummm... just wondering how many "songs" do you want? need? can listen to?

    I'm guessing it's a bit less than 4 million.

    does anyone gaf?
  • Amazon wants to do for music and podcasts what it did for audio books and ebooks: Control the marketplace by being the only connection between artists and their fans (consumers). Once this "free" and "improved" service gets dominant market share, they will squeeze artists on the input side (get them to lower prices and/or take a larger share of revenue) and lock in fans on the other side (want to leave? Can't take your playlists, bookmarks and podcast lists with you). And Amazon has shown time and time agai

  • Sorry Amazon, I've quit Prime altogether (Score:3)

    by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Tuesday November 01, 2022 @10:24PM (#63017717) Homepage

    Guess what, I still get free shipping on most orders, if I'm willing to wait 4 days or so instead of 2. For most things, that works just fine. And the few times I need something shipped faster, I can still pay for shipping, and the shipping charges don't add up to $140 a year.

    It's crazy how difficult a mental stretch it was to leave Prime, I definitely hesitated. But four months out, it's still working just fine.

    Oh, and maybe I'm old, but I still prefer to buy my MP3s. Then I can do what I want with them. And that certainly doesn't add up to $140 a year.

  • This is actually a downgrade from the previous prime music! Yes, you have access 100 millions songs instead of 2 millions, but you cannot directly access ANY song, and playlists do not work anymore... Every time you ask for a song an algorithm select a set of random "similar" songs (and do this also very bad) and create a playlist... This is horrible, the service is now useful only if you want to hear some background music. 2 millions is better than 100 millions? YES if you can really choose what you wa

  • I'm canceling my family plan and moving to Spotify in about a week. The Amazon Music app is absolutely horrible on both Android and iOS. Just. Terrible. It's just so unstable, and it's gotten worse. I really wish that Amazon would have invested some time into the app to make it more stable, but apparently that's not in the cards for tech companies.

  • You get improved access for things you didn't pay for, but worse access for things you did pay for.

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