Photo Credit: Amazon
Amazon Music expands its entire catalog of 100 million songs to Prime members in shuffle mode.
Amazon Prime subscribers now have access to the entire Amazon Music catalog in shuffle mode and ad-free podcasts. The move comes as both Apple Music and Spotify have (or plan) to increase the base price of their individual music streaming plans.
“Prime members will now be able to stream more music than ever before,” reads the press release. “We’ve expanded the Amazon Music catalog for Prime members to include more than 100 million songs–up from 2 million–entirely ad-free.”
“Prime members can explore music and podcasts based on their likes; shuffle play any artist, album, or playlist in the catalog; and stream a collection of All-Access playlists tailored to personalized listening preferences on demand and available to download for offline listening.”
Amazon is also offering ad-free podcast listening to Prime members, including the full Wondery catalog of premium podcasts and other Amazon-exclusive podcasts. Amazon is also introducing a new spate of exclusive podcast content across multiple genres. Those include:
- Baby, This is Keke Palmer
- MrBallen podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
- Suspect: Vanished in the Snow
- COLD Season Three: The Search for Sheree
- Killer Psyche Daily
- I Hear Fear
Amazon is also revamping the Amazon Music app to include new a new podcast previews feature. This feature offers short soundbites from podcast episodes, helping customers sample podcast content as they’re browsing. Think of it like Netflix’s trailer previews–only they don’t play automatically and annoy you.
Listening to songs in HD, Ultra HD, and spatial audio still requires an Amazon Music Unlimited subscription. Prime customers pay $8.99/month for the Unlimited tier, while non-Prime subscribers pay $9.99/month. Both of those prices are a couple of bucks cheaper than the competition offered by Apple and Spotify for now, making this an interesting strategy for Amazon Music subscriber growth.