Online shopping giant Amazon has entered the British streaming audio market with the launch today of Prime Music, a UK service cheaper than Apple Music or Spotify, but with a significantly smaller selection of songs.
The service, available as a free add-on to Amazon Prime subscribers, gives access to a library of one million songs by popular artists including Royal Blood, George Ezra, Paolo Nutini, One Direction and Ella Henderson, as well as classic albums from Bob Dylan, Madonna and David Bowie.
However, there are some "big holes" in Amazon's catalogue, the BBC notes.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"The likes of Amy Winehouse, Abba, Katy Perry, Kanye West and Eminem … are unavailable at launch."
Amazon's collection of one million songs falls far short of market leader Spotify, which offers a music catalogue of 30 million tracks. But Amazon claims that it will be updating its music collection "all the time".
Use of music streaming services has more than doubled over the past year. According to figures from the Official Chart Company, British music fans streamed a record 500 million songs last week.
"Consuming music is evolving and we want to maintain pace with that evolution," Amazon UK's head of music, Paul Firth told the BBC.
As well as streaming music, membership to Amazon Prime also offers one-day delivery to most parts of the UK, one-hour delivery on certain items within London, photo storage, access to 15,000 movies and TV shows through Prime Instant Video, and a library of 800,000 books to borrow from the Kindle owners’ lending library.
The service costs £79, but Amazon may have a long way to go before matching its streaming rival Spotify, which boasts 60 million members worldwide – more than Tidal, Deezer, Rdio, Rhapsody and Google Play combined, The Guardian notes. Amazon is notoriously tight-lipped about how many Prime subscribers it has, but in January the company confirmed that the figure was higher than 20 million.
-
The Velvet Sundown: viral band that doesn't actually existIn the Spotlight These AI-generated rock hits are brought to listeners by… no one
-
Jeff in Venice: a 'triumph of tackiness'?In the Spotlight Locals protest as Bezos uses the city as a 'private amusement park' for his wedding celebrations
-
Jony Ive's iPhone design changed the world. Can he do it again with OpenAI?Talking Points Ive is joining OpenAI, hoping to create another transformative piece of personal technology. Can lightning strike twice?
-
'Severance' and the best tech dystopia showsThe Week Recommends If the Apple TV+ hit increased your appetite for bleak futurism, you have additional options
-
Will Amazon destroy James Bond?Talking Point Broccoli family yields control of franchise to tech giant, sparking fears of corporate 'Americanisation' of beloved British icon
-
The best TV series with multiple timelines right nowThe Week Recommends Narratives that spend significant time in two or more stories can be especially rewarding
-
'Beast' of a lawsuit: YouTube star and Amazon sued by contestants over abuse claimsThe Explainer Can the breakout YouTube star weather a growing scandal engulfing his forthcoming reality TV competition?
-
A not-so-quiet place: Why is no one using headphones in public anymore?Under the Radar People are increasingly comfortable with both speakerphone and watching videos (very) out loud
