Amazon Launches Prime Music Streaming Service

Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) on Thursday rolled out Prime Music, a music-streaming service available to members with a $99 Amazon Prime subscription.

Prime Music will compete with other streaming services such as Spotify, Pandora (NYSE:P) and Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) Beats Music. The new service features over a million songs, according to Amazon’s website. That number is dwarfed by the 20 million streaming tracks offered by Spotify.

“We want to go where our customers are going” by unveiling a streaming music service, Amazon’s vice president for digital music, Steve Boom, told USA Today, in a story published Thursday.

Amazon Prime members will have the benefits of Prime Music for free, along with free three-day shipping and the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library, which gives subscribers access to one free e-book every month.

Amazon’s streaming service features no ads and the option for Prime members to skip as many songs as they would like (by comparison, only paying Spotify members can get uninterrupted music and unlimited skips). Prime Music also has “hundreds of expert-programmed Prime Playlists ranging from “Rainy Day Jazz” to “Tears in My Beer: Sad Country” to “Endless Bummer.”

Amazon gave Prime members a glimpse at some of the artists they’ll be able to find on the streaming music site.

“With Prime Music, you can listen ad-free to over a million songs from top artists like Daft Punk, P!nk, Bruno Mars, Blake Shelton, The Lumineers, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna. And we’ll be adding more music all the time” the website states. “Load up your library with Prime Music. Find more music from your favorite artists or let Amazon’s personalized recommendations introduce you to your next favorite band.”

The Prime Music service is not tied down to any one device, so members need not have Amazon’s Kindle brand of e-readers or tablets to enjoy streaming music. The service is available on Android and Apple tablets and smartphones, as well as on PCs and Macs.