14 ms·

Amazon Prime Music

243 points by samiq 12y ago

zak_mc_kracken 12y ago
Can't wait to compare this with Spotify.
- general_failure 12y ago
  Sigur ros wasn't available.
  - jck 12y ago
    Most of Animal Collective's albums aren't available as well.
- gamegoblin 12y ago
  I just went through my current Spotify playlist and everything was on there. I'll try it over the next few days. This may be it for Spotify.
  - timmaah 12y ago
    Most of what I listen to on Spotify is not available. It is not that obscure. Mike Pinto, Greensky Bluegrass, The Devil Makes Three, JJ Grey & Mofro, Jack Johnson, Dirty Heads... list goes on.
    - gamegoblin 12y ago
      I guess I just listen to very mainstream stuff... the only in that list I have heard of is Jack Johnson. I guess it's fortunate for me that I have pretty vanilla tastes that Amazon seems to serve up.
      - timmaah 12y ago
        Very fortunate from what i can tell. Looking at the top 100 albums in their "MP3 Downloads" section.. not a single one is available to stream via Prime
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minimaxir 12y ago
It was smart for Amazon to increase the price of Prime right before launching music streaming. :p
rtanaka 12y ago
Just in time to go along with their phone that's coming out.
- gamegoblin 12y ago
  It is interesting to see Amazon enter the ring with Google and Apple on the phones and music market. A few years ago I don't think I would have entirely believed it. But I guess that's why I don't do any investing outside of index funds!
- ctdonath 12y ago
  What kind of monthly mobile data usage will this application entail? iTunes is geared toward the model of "download, then listen on the go" with the option of cellular streaming. Amazon Music seems the reverse, geared toward cellular streaming, with some caching. The service certainly provides the phone with the feature of free mobile music, but at the cost ($?) of significantly increased consumption of one's data plan.
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curiousAl 12y ago
If this can match spotify's catalog any time soon, AND be available as an app or (usable) mobile site, ad free: RIP music services. This is an enticing offer for those on the fence about prime, given that spotify premium is $120 a year. For the same price, you get prime, spotify, a bit of netflix/hulu (hopefully more to come on the video end). Pretty brilliant move.
- jychang 12y ago
  For the price, this is a really good deal. However, some people (like me) have over 200+ spotify playlists with over 100 songs, and 20+ ones that I actively use. If they want to capture spotify's market share, just having a large enough catalog wouldn't cut it. They need a easy way to convert the spotify library into their apps.
  - kolev 12y ago
    Maybe they will introduce Amazon Second, which for $5.99/mo will offer larger streaming catalog. :)
- mutagen 12y ago
  The catalog isn't there yet. I'm getting about a 50% hit rate on assorted genres from a variety of artists that I don't feel are particularly obscure, stuff that Pandora plays for me and Spotifiy has in their catalog. Hopefully this changes and Amazon can add even more value to my Prime subscription.
andrewguenther 12y ago
This is seriously a usability disaster. I have to go through the normal Amazon store to add music to my prime library? I have to leave the player to find music to listen to? No thank you.
- wging 12y ago
  >I have to leave the player to find music to listen to? You don't. cloudplayer.amazon.com -> type in search -> look at right-hand side.
  - BrandonY 12y ago
    Nope. This is also a disaster. I typed "daft punk" into that box. Daft Punk has four full albums available for prime music. None of those albums are in the search results. Instead I get a "Daft Punk's Top So..." playlist, and "Hot, Sweaty Summ..." playlist, and "Janelle Monáe and Mo..." playlist. I can't fault free new music, but this interface feels like it was poorly bolted on to a retail sales website, which is exactly how the web video service has always felt. Edit: I just realized that 3 of the albums are in the search results. I turns out the right tab is scrollable, and after 15 items, it switches to showing matching albums, which includes 3 of the 4 Daft Punk albums, and also some Macklemore.
  - andrewguenther 12y ago
    I didn't notice this because nothing I was looking for ever actually showed up there (even though it is available through Prime Music).
- __david__ 12y ago
  Their iOS app seems to be a much better experience than the web site, where I kept getting accidentally shunted to the "digital music" department where the prime music wasn't highlighted.
  - theplaz 12y ago
    The Windows Desktop app is much better as it's all in one place (like the iOS app). However you still have to "add" the music to play it.
L_Rahman 12y ago
1. Given my listening habits, the library feels limited. Tried searches for the three albums I listened to the most this month (http://www.last.fm/user/labibrahman/charts http://www.last.fm/user/labibrahman/charts): Sylvan Esso - Sylvan Esso Chet Faker - Built on Glass Tycho - Awake None are available for streaming. For a standalone service, this would be damning. As one of the perks offered with Prime this has the potential to become a compelling part of the package. 2. Amazon's store interface is not well suited for consuming media. I tried watching a few episodes of Friday Night Lights on the service instead of Netflix. Spoilers in episode descriptions meant that I had to very specifically control where I let my eyes over the UI. Next episodes don't auto play. Perhaps most annoyingly, there isn't a standalone URL I could go to for my streaming needs. To watch an episode I had to carry out the following steps: Navigate to amazon.com Search for Friday Night Lights Skim the results to click on the TV show Remember what season I was on Skim the episode descriptions while avoiding spoilers Click to stream, and make sure I don't accidentally click on the 1-click buy button which is annoyingly right next to the stream button. My flow on Netflix: Navigate to netflix.com Click on the continue watching pane on top left corner of my screen. I want Amazon to be a legitimate competitor in the space, but running everything through the store interface is killing any chance of me using Prime as a media consumption service. 3. I suspect that this works many orders of magnitude better on the Kindle Fire line of devices and that's great for people who already own Kindle Fires. If I don't already own one though, the Prime ecosystem should be driving to make that purchase and right now it is failing at that task.
- chc 12y ago
  I had the same result looking for my recent most-played bands. From what I've found so far, the only artists I like for whom they have good coverage are Dave Matthews Band and Pearl Jam. So I guess you're in luck if you love the '90s. Even the "popular artists" list that they're pimping on the front page is more striking for what's missing than what's there. They don't have the vast, vast majority of REM's discography (including "Automatic for the People"!), most of Pink's albums, anything by Cher besides "Believe", literally any of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' albums that you would have heard of (seriously, why are they even listed?), Shakira's "Laundry Service", "Oops!…I Did It Again" by Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake's second album — and that was just glancing around as I wrote this paragraph. The most confounding part is that there doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to what they have or don't have.
bradleybuda 12y ago
The UX for this is very awkward (unless I'm missing something) - the "store" and the "player" are completely disjoint experiences with only a few marketing links between them. You can't actually add new (free) "Prime Music" to your collection from the player - you have to jump to the "store" to discover the music you want and add it to your cloud library. Nor can you play full songs from the "store", even if you have Prime and they are free - you are limited to 30 second samples. The amazing thing about Rdio and Spotify, and what makes streaming services different than their MP3 purchasing predecessors, is that you can think "I want to listen to Kanye", type "Kanye" in to the search bar, press enter and listen. Amazon is making this whole process very awkward by adding a "buy" step (even if no money is changing hands). The reason that Spotify is disruptive isn't that the music is paid for via subscription pricing - it's that it eliminates the distinction between "music I own" and "all of the music ever recorded".
- SilkRoadie 12y ago
  It is no better than their Amazon Instant Video. Their video offering is pretty terrible. Takes ages to move between menus. You cannot just continue from where you were previously. It doesn't skip the credits and offer the next episode. The whole thing is painful to use compared to Netflix. Another example. Yesterday I was looking for a TV show I was watching. I went into "Your TV Shows" and it wasn't there. It had been pushed out by other shows I watched. Instead it appeared in "Recently Watched." It is so unintuitive. I have a prime account. I wouldn't mind cancelling Netflix and Spotify but can't while the user experience offered by Amazon is so horrible.
  - cwyers 12y ago
    Amazon's UX on Prime Instant on the PC is so terrible, their discoverability on ANY platform is awful, and they have restricted HD streaming of Prime content (i.e., stuff you don't have to buy) to non-PC platforms only. And I've had far more problems with buffering on Prime Instant on Xbox 360 than I have ever had with Netflix, despite watching roughly five times as much content on Netflix. It's ridiculous. Their music offering looks like more of the same. Lower selection, poor discoverability, a second-class UI on PC. I really wish Amazon would stop re-purposing their storefront UI for every product they can, and actually design a decent UI for their various products.
greenyoda 12y ago
In addition to the music that's available via Prime, they have an "auto-rip" feature that automatically adds to your music library any tracks from physical CDs that you've purchased from Amazon in the past. Very nice.
- thesimon 12y ago
  Sometimes the price for the CD's with auto-rip is cheaper than the MP3 only price. Quite strange.
  - brianwawok 12y ago
    I am sure it has to do with contracts and apple. "No one can sell the MP3 cheaper than we sell it".. but no mention of a CD + autorip. Or thats how I ended up with a frozen CD that cost -$.50
kmf 12y ago
Seems like the library is a little limited. As of tonight (2014-06-11 23:19 PST), two of the top songs on Rdio and Spotify are "Problem' by Ariana Grande and "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea. Neither are available on Prime Music, only for purchase on the normal MP3 Store. I suppose the advantage is a lot of people already have Prime, but I don't see any reason to jump ship from either Rdio or Spotify for this.
avalaunch 12y ago
For those wanting to compare this to Spotify, Amazon Prime Music has about 5% of the number of songs that Spotify does (1 million vs 20 million). Most notably, it's missing the entire Universal Music Group catalog as well as most new releases. At 20 dollars less per year than Spotify, while also offering Prime shipping and Prime movies, I can't imagine Amazon will be able to reach any sort of licensing arrangement where they have anywhere near the library Spotify has.
- tonyblundell 12y ago
  They'll probably run it at a loss until they have the subscriber numbers to make profit. As long as they get usable web/phone/xbox apps this will kill Spotify.
adamnemecek 12y ago
Well this product is dead on arrival http://i.imgur.com/hBVq7pp.png http://i.imgur.com/hBVq7pp.png
- gamegoblin 12y ago
  I just discovered that as well. And it just so happens that 3 of the songs by the artist I wanted were all non-prime. Very lame.
  - talmand 12y ago
    Dead on arrival? How? Why is there the expectation that every song in an album would be free under Prime? "This free music is lame because it's not the music I wanted for free?" Do you tell stores their free samples suck because you wanted a free sample of a different product?
    - VikingCoder 12y ago
      I don't know how many people are like me, but the atomic unit of listening to music for me is an ALBUM, not a SONG. So, for people like me, to try to explain to people like you... Why is there the expectation that every second in a song would be free under Prime?
      - talmand 12y ago
        You shouldn't attempt to put people into groups before you know which groups people would belong to. Sure, I understand, there are many albums that I enjoy in the entirety and not so much with individual songs. You can always buy the albums. As for you question, such a thing already exists; they are called samples.
    - jamiesonbecker 12y ago
      Right! It's a FREE!! music sampling service that costs $100/year where you can hear a few selected songs in their entirety, but only through a spammy web app. AWESOME!
Lennu 12y ago
At first I thought it is free music without ads: "Unlimited, ad-free streaming. Free with Amazon Prime." I noticed "Listen free for 30 days", so there is some kind of trick here. I logged into the system and on the next screen they were asking for my credit card information which is needed to start a 30 day free trial on Amazon Prime (after it is $100/year). Prime is some kind of premium service for Amazon services. So, Amazon Prime Music is FREE if you BUY Amazon Prime. In my opinion that is not anyway free, well okay it is for 30 days after that you will get automaticly charged.
- Domenic_S 12y ago
  What exactly did you think "Free with Amazon Prime." meant?
- andrewguenther 12y ago
  "Free with Amazon Prime" makes this very clear. No tricks, just plain English.
- ctdonath 12y ago
  "Free with purchase" is common marketing terminology. You didn't expect a ginormous retailer would just give away millions of products for absolutely free (ad-free, no subscription, no cost whatsoever), did you?
quotient 12y ago
Wow. This is outstanding. Amazon is solidly developing a one-stop centralized base of entertainment. Even more enticing is that it's free with prime, and even if you don't have prime, it's worth getting prime for: a small fee for a year's access to most music/films you could want. And then you have prime, which makes it much more enticing to buy products on Amazon (due to cheaper, faster delivery). Smart. (I am aware that Amazon's music library is currently not as large as that of its competitors. I think it is reasonable to assume that this will change in the near future.) The more significant thing to note here is that the general trend in online businesses (obvious examples will include Google, Apple, and Facebook) is that every business is trying to create its own walled garden --- they try to provide all the services that any user could need, such that the user would not do business with any competitors, and so the user would interface with the business as much as possible. Apple did a remarkably good job at this with iTunes back in the day --- they were the first to provide access to a massive online store of entertainment and to integrate it very heavily with their products. Amazon, however, is taking the cake in this respect. Their products are extremely well-integrated: www.amazon.com is gradually becoming a one-stop-destination for most media and for general shopping. Perhaps this is due to Amazon's perseverance: I've never seen Amazon weaken its hold on a particular share of any market.
- jbarham 12y ago
  > I've never seen Amazon weaken its hold on a particular share of any market. I can see AWS being squeezed by outfits like Digital Ocean and Linode on the low end and Google Compute/App Engine on the high end. Anecdotally, I used to run some servers on AWS but moved them to DO & Linode as they're cheaper, faster & simpler.
  - clarkm 12y ago
    Yeah, DigitalOcean and Linode are great if you just wanna run some servers. But AWS is much, much more than that.
    - derefr 12y ago
      It is; I just spent the last two weeks putting together a very handsome CloudFormation template that can attest to that. I'm almost considering creating a custom CF resource provider to let me spawn DigitalOcean droplets, though. (And to let me use CloudFlare CDN distributions instead of CloudFront ones. Amazon need to either finish CloudFront, or kill it; this purgatorial state where it works but it takes 30 minutes to make any changes, and where only half of its APIs are exposed in the SDK libraries, is obnoxious.)
lzlarryli 12y ago
The classical collection seems to be small. For example, 24098 out of 658027 (3.7%) pop albums are prime, but only 894 of 171251 (0.5%) classical albums are prime. I expected the other way (wishfully, as a fan of classical music), that older less popular music is cheaper to be made prime for Amazon. Strange.
- kolev 12y ago
  Isn't the classical also cheaper to license?
  - justincormack 12y ago
    Not sure. The consumers of it are generally wealthier so it has always been a "premium" market, even if smaller. The fact that much of it is out of copyright doesnt mean you dont have to pay performance rights...
    - kolev 12y ago
      Makes sense. I also find myself primarily listening to classical music, and, as a side note, I hate that apps like Shazam, Google, and SoundHound can't recognize most of it.
      - justincormack 12y ago
        The search is also terrible, eg Spotify does not understand the semantics of composer vs performance, so although it has a lot it is very hard to find.
      - ternaryoperator 12y ago
        It's not just those services and apps, it's pretty much anything that has to do with music. Try rippig classical CDs and you quickly discover how bad the online music registries are at identifying albums, how bad ripping software is at sorting out composer from artist, etc. In nearly all aspects of software dealing with music, classical is the odd man out. It's a constant frustration.
TwistedWeasel 12y ago
Free (with purchased subscription)
mynameishere 12y ago
Searched for a number of things unsuccessfully then found that Neil Young is on it. Okay, tried to play "Harvest" and it refused. The previews for the same album work, but only after letting the Flash widget run (I use flashblock). The Prime videos use Silverlight, so that was never an issue. I can't find a widget hiding anywhere for the prime music, so I'm guessing that's a bug on their part. Or maybe I have it all wrong. Not going to waste time debugging their issues. Has anyone tried the amazon lending library? Absolute rubbish. At least this has Neil Young, but the problem is, you have to have nearly everything for it to work. And also you're competing with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8odlwI94uFA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8odlwI94uFA
- plorg 12y ago
  Tried it on Chrome/Linux. Audio appears to be played through a flash plugin (noted since I have "click to enable plugins" set). Checking the debugger, the service seems to use HTTP Live Streaming/m3u8 with 10-second, 400k mp2ts chunks. Digging a touch further, chunks are apparently encoded to 256-kbps AAC, and their URLs can be captured and replayed for up to an hour. Reconstituting tracks, then, is as simple as catting all the chunks together and running them through libav. I'm sure there are much easier ways to make unauthorized copies of music, but this actually seems fairly unprotected, though obviously not 'open', since it's using a flash-based player.
weisser 12y ago
> Over a million songs and hundreds of playlists. This line reads like it's by Rhapsody in 2002.
rjvir 12y ago
I don't see the point - it doesn't have Jason Derulo's latest album, nor does it have Ariana Grande's.
millstone 12y ago
Prime subscriber here. Cool beans. I found some of my favorites. But I also found a lot of spammy crap. I searched for Smashing Pumpkins, and it's pages of "1979 [A Tribute to the Smashing Pumpkins]" or "Disarm [In The Style Of The Smashing Pumpkins]". It takes some work to figure out, no, they don't actually have them. I'm reminded of Steve Jobs's line with the introduction of the iTMS: "This number [of songs] could have easily been much higher, if we wanted to let in every song. But we realize record companies do a great service. They edit!" Here's hoping they can grow their library, but in the meantime, please don't give me piss when I search for rain.
- talmand 12y ago
  But I thought keeping record companies as the gatekeepers was bad? I'd rather I decide for myself if I like a song or not and not a corporate business decision maker decide for me before I have a chance to hear it.
- ctdonath 12y ago
  Same reason I prefer iBooks over Kindle: the store is sensibly curated, not polluted with vague resemblances, knock-offs, and (worst) proliferation of really bad OCR conversions.
hkmurakami 12y ago
There was a playlist I actually wanted to listen to. I added it, and I was okay with the awkward checkout flow until it prompted me to enter credit card information, despite being logged into my regular Amazon account. At this point, I gave up and closed the window. I couldn't be bothered to enter this information when I already have various other streaming services. I wonder what their stats are like for the sign on funnel...
tendom 12y ago
Wooohooo, yet another amazon prime thing that isn't offered to Canadians. Considering we pay more, get "2 day shipping" which is actually 3 days because Amazon cant' seem to do math, and get no other services, and Amazon prices are rarely something to get excited about here, well Amazon, we're done. I just cancelled my amazon prime account. Apple, Netflix, and Google figured out ways to get media to Canada, but Amazon decided to suck donkey nuts... again.
- yitchelle 12y ago
  Do feel so bad. My amazon.de account in Germany also does not have this "prime" feature.
  - tendom 12y ago
    Well, I pay $83 a year for prime, I just don't get anything special for it.
sytelus 12y ago
It costs $10 per month for on-demand streaming of 16 million songs in Rhapsody. By that calculation, this offer would cost $7.5 annually. So it's a smart move for Amazon to lure people to Prime by sacrificing small fraction of revenue. I'm a user of Rhapsody for almost 13 years now and love it not having to buy individual 100s of artists I listen to. Amazon's 1 million song collection is peanuts for me but for most others it might be enough. I see we are now only few months away from true commoditization of music business (i.e. pay monthly subscription to use all you want like electricity and water).
fargo 12y ago
Anybody knows if this is going to be available in the UK?
deleted 12y ago
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kolev 12y ago
Limited selection like Prime Instant Video, but at least it's available on Android (although the app doesn't seem to support the new service yet and is butt-ugly). On a side note, I don't really get why Amazon is twisting our arms and doesn't offer Instant Video on Android outside of Google TV and Kindle Fire. I care less about their free videos, but I've purchased digital content and I'm not able to watch it on my Android tablet. Do they really think they can make me buy Kindle Fire just for that?
- tootie 12y ago
  This is most interesting for me. They are deliberately withholding an android app for streaming video, but they are dipping their toes in with streaming music.
  - kolev 12y ago
    They just updated their Amazon Music app in the Play Store. It's a complete revamp!
psychometry 12y ago
Isn't anyone interested in owning their music anymore? Have we all become such casual consumers of music that the concept of building a permanent library of music they like is unnecessary? I will never understand the appeal of subscription music services.
- swombat 12y ago
  You're not alone. My blood congeals at the idea that access to the music I love is somehow restricted by a third party with a different agenda to mine. I have zero interest in a third party streaming service. Now, if I could install my very own self-hosted Spotify-alike, stick all my music on there, and stream it to my devices with a smooth wireless connection that works even when I'm in tunnels, then you've got me as a streaming music customer.
  - steelcm 12y ago
    I'm the complete opposite. I'm a bit of a tinkerer, so my hardware and OS are transient (flash a new build every 3 months). Instead of migrating data, my habits have instead slowly evolved to using SAAS. Don't get me wrong, I have a NAS drive somewhere with a load of music/movies on, but I just don't touch it anymore. It's easier to open up a browser and sign-in to grooveshark or google play.
  - theplaz 12y ago
    The old version of Cloud Drive was pretty much that (except it was hosted on Amazon). Before Cloud Drive, I used Subsonic, which is self hosted. Though it never really worked all that well.
  - stephenc_c_ 12y ago
    You can do that with Subsonic: http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp
    - err4nt 12y ago
      skip Subsonic and migrate to Plex. I do have a paid subscription because I love the software so much, but here's why it's so great: The media server can run on Windows, Mac, and Linux, so I have it set up on my web server. You can then use a client on Windows, Mac, iOS, or the web browser to stream music, photos, and movies. You can also share your library with other Plex users, so if you have libraries that are always online, consuming media from iOS for you and your friends can feel very much like your own private Netflix (and Rdio/grooveshark) It truly is the smoothest way to stream your own media, I've tried them all. http://plex.tv http://plex.tv
Semaphor 12y ago
Can't use it as Amazon knows about my German account. Weird that it isn't a problem for Instant Video. But I guess my next prime subscription will be on a new account that is only connected to the US. Maybe it will finally allow me to buy TV shows as well.
theplaz 12y ago
Not sure why I have to "add" to listen to Prime songs. Can't I play the full song before adding it to my library? I want to be careful what I add - it's kinda like a bookmark. I should be able to try it first.
- deleted 12y ago
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veidr 12y ago
Cool. Unlike most things Amazon, such as Prime video, this service works in Japan, using a US Amazon account. (I tested quickly using the Mac client for it.)
ctz 12y ago
Note that this only applies to US Amazon Prime accounts. If you are an Amazon Prime customer in another region, Amazon will ignore that and ask you to start another Amazon Prime subscription. But I doubt your second Prime account will actually come with any of the advertised benefits. Which, for an international company with accurate knowledge of my billing address, is misleading and hamfisted.
- moystard 12y ago
  Got surprised as well to see that they were proposing me subscribe to Prime when I have been a Prime member for more than a year. Realised that I was on the US website, and the music streaming does not seem to be accessible for UK customers.
paul_f 12y ago
Amazon loves running experiments. I am sure they will learn and improve. I'm not gonna drop Spotify for this, but imagine Amazon will improve this over time and make it more useful. Hopefully enough to where I can drop the $100/yr Spotify subscriptions.
joeblau 12y ago
> Over a million songs and hundreds of playlists. When applications like Hip Hop[1] exist and are advertising 45 million songs, a million doesn't seem that impressive. [1] - http://gethiphop.net/ http://gethiphop.net/
digitalsushi 12y ago
I am a USA prime account holder with an account that was renewed in January of this year (2014). I was curious why the amazon prime music page indicated I needed to upgrade my account, so, I clicked 'upgrade for 99 dollars'. It went ahead and renewed my prime account with today's date, and sent me a new welcome email. It's completely unclear if it has consumed my previous subscription with over half a year left. So be cautious... probably I did not read enough!
- talmand 12y ago
  I would ask support about that, Amazon seems to be usually adept at handling such service calls. They handled our complaints in the past that were similar to this quite nicely.
- digitalsushi 12y ago
  My edit expired - Here is the deal. A person can share Amazon Prime with other people - family, friends, etc - but the primary benefits such as this music are available to only the primary email address holder. So when I said 'upgrade account', even though the Verify Prime indicated Active, it was not active for music. The upgrade button instantly charges 99 dollars.
TheCraiggers 12y ago
This has the same problems that I have with Prime Video: 1) The interface is rather horrid when compared to services in the same category, like Netflix. Others have already expounded on this though, so I won't waste the bytes. 2) I hate, hate, HATE being told I have access to all these movies/songs, only to find that the content I searched for isn't available to stream unless I pay extra money on top of the service I already have. Logically I say that it's better to have extra options- but I've never gotten as mad at Netflix for not having what I want to watch as I've gotten at Amazon for having what I want to watch, but needing to pay extra.
- bredman 12y ago
  Interesting, I've have had the exact opposite experience for #2. If there's a movie, or TV show that I want to watch I'd rather pay $5 to watch it than just be told it's not available. This has had such a strong effect on me that if there's something in particular I want to watch I go to Amazon before Netflix simply because I know I will more likely have an option to watch what I want (even if it costs money). Personally I feel like Netflix has back themselves into a corner by only having one all-inclusive price level. That said the part about Amazon that infuriates me is when they have the movies available but not for rent and only offer the pay $15 to own option. Also the Netflix discovery/browse is experience is light years better than Amazon's.
willu 12y ago
I was actually pretty excited about this because they happen to have a lot of music I listen to (electronic). I loaded up about two dozen albums and downloaded their Android MP3 app. Tried to play a track and was told the track was no longer Prime eligible. The whole album grayed out and when accessed says "We're sorry but this album is no longer available in Amazon's catalog".
scdc 12y ago
Would love to see this work in the Sonos app. I'm a Prime member & just added a bunch of albums to my Amazon Music Player via web browser. Switched to Sonos and the AMP, but only see the ones I've purchased.
taskstrike 12y ago
A lot of comments seems to be negative on this. As a amazon prime subscriber, this is great for me, here's why: 1. I have amazon prime for their delivery, and this is basically a free music service for my mobile that is unmatched by anything else. (Free spotify sucks on mobile in comparison, and can't be used offline) 2. Downloaded songs basically gives me a library and allows me to use the song everywhere. 3. A million songs is a lot, unless you listen a lot to very esoteric bands, it works well. The app is crashing on search for me, but it doesn't matter, the content is so great I will keep going back. Amazon Prime video already trumped netflix with their HBO library acquisition. I am psyched to see what they will try next.
joshstrange 12y ago
This is another case (IMHO) of Amazon being a "Jack of all trades, King of none". Prime delivery is awesome, they are king in that arena but video/music is seriously lacking in the UI/UX department. They have decent content for free on Instant Video but it doesn't keep track of what you have watched and navigating is a massive PITA. Their music selection is sparse and that's me being kind... I paused my Spotify to check out their OS X app and couldn't believe how terrible it is. Search is confusing and navigating my library is not intuitive at all. I will keep an eye on it but they should not have released it in this state.
yellowapple 12y ago
I like the idea, but it seems to be poorly executed with the absolutely-dismal selection of Prime-eligible music. Good albums missing, good songs missing, even entire artists missing (even ones that were at one point pretty mainstream; Sublime, for example). Amusingly, when searching for "Let It Go", I ended up with virtually every song titled "Let It Go" that's not sung by Idina Menzel (speaking of which, the only Idina Menzel songs available are from Glee, and there are a whole two of them that are actually sung by Idina Menzel). Disney's probably to blame for that one, but still.
pessimizer 12y ago
I wish they would quit rolling all of this shit into a giant monoproduct. I just want to prepay for postage. edit: Is this why they raised the prices for Prime? If so, the fact that I will never use it means they're saying that they don't want me as a customer.
scottm01 12y ago
Amazon's cloud player was the first music locker I tried (I believe in the US it predated Spotify along with google music and certainly icloud/itunes integration). I keep forgetting to cancel my prime account, so I thought I'd check this out. Beyond the comments above about UX and library content, I was surprised to find I no longer have access to my uploaded songs unless I upgrade to something called "Cloud Player Premium". No thanks.
nickfox 12y ago
After reading about this on Hacker News, I went straight there to find my current favorite song, Happy, by Pharrell Williams. It wasn't there so I bought it for a $1.29. I wasn't happy. Then, I listened to the song a few times and I was happy again.
MikeTV 12y ago
I want to like this... with Amazon video, I can read reviews, see related items, and play the video on the same page. With Amazon music I can read reviews and find related items, but to play it I must first 1) add it to my library, 2) navigate to the cloud player 3) search for the album in my library, 4) click play. After finding an album using Amazon reviews and related items, this is faster: 1) Search GrooveShark/YouTube from the Chrome URL bar, 2) click play.

Amazon Prime Music

243 points by samiq 12y ago

zak_mc_kracken 12y ago

Can't wait to compare this with Spotify.

general_failure 12y ago
Sigur ros wasn't available.
- jck 12y ago
  Most of Animal Collective's albums aren't available as well.
gamegoblin 12y ago
I just went through my current Spotify playlist and everything was on there. I'll try it over the next few days. This may be it for Spotify.
- timmaah 12y ago
  Most of what I listen to on Spotify is not available. It is not that obscure. Mike Pinto, Greensky Bluegrass, The Devil Makes Three, JJ Grey & Mofro, Jack Johnson, Dirty Heads... list goes on.
  - gamegoblin 12y ago
    I guess I just listen to very mainstream stuff... the only in that list I have heard of is Jack Johnson. I guess it's fortunate for me that I have pretty vanilla tastes that Amazon seems to serve up.
    - timmaah 12y ago
      Very fortunate from what i can tell. Looking at the top 100 albums in their "MP3 Downloads" section.. not a single one is available to stream via Prime

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

minimaxir 12y ago

It was smart for Amazon to increase the price of Prime right before launching music streaming. :p

rtanaka 12y ago

Just in time to go along with their phone that's coming out.

gamegoblin 12y ago
It is interesting to see Amazon enter the ring with Google and Apple on the phones and music market. A few years ago I don't think I would have entirely believed it. But I guess that's why I don't do any investing outside of index funds!
ctdonath 12y ago
What kind of monthly mobile data usage will this application entail? iTunes is geared toward the model of "download, then listen on the go" with the option of cellular streaming. Amazon Music seems the reverse, geared toward cellular streaming, with some caching. The service certainly provides the phone with the feature of free mobile music, but at the cost ($?) of significantly increased consumption of one's data plan.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

curiousAl 12y ago

If this can match spotify's catalog any time soon, AND be available as an app or (usable) mobile site, ad free: RIP music services. This is an enticing offer for those on the fence about prime, given that spotify premium is $120 a year. For the same price, you get prime, spotify, a bit of netflix/hulu (hopefully more to come on the video end). Pretty brilliant move.

jychang 12y ago
For the price, this is a really good deal. However, some people (like me) have over 200+ spotify playlists with over 100 songs, and 20+ ones that I actively use. If they want to capture spotify's market share, just having a large enough catalog wouldn't cut it. They need a easy way to convert the spotify library into their apps.
- kolev 12y ago
  Maybe they will introduce Amazon Second, which for $5.99/mo will offer larger streaming catalog. :)
mutagen 12y ago
The catalog isn't there yet. I'm getting about a 50% hit rate on assorted genres from a variety of artists that I don't feel are particularly obscure, stuff that Pandora plays for me and Spotifiy has in their catalog. Hopefully this changes and Amazon can add even more value to my Prime subscription.

andrewguenther 12y ago

This is seriously a usability disaster. I have to go through the normal Amazon store to add music to my prime library? I have to leave the player to find music to listen to? No thank you.

wging 12y ago
>I have to leave the player to find music to listen to? You don't. cloudplayer.amazon.com -> type in search -> look at right-hand side.
- BrandonY 12y ago
  Nope. This is also a disaster. I typed "daft punk" into that box. Daft Punk has four full albums available for prime music. None of those albums are in the search results. Instead I get a "Daft Punk's Top So..." playlist, and "Hot, Sweaty Summ..." playlist, and "Janelle Monáe and Mo..." playlist. I can't fault free new music, but this interface feels like it was poorly bolted on to a retail sales website, which is exactly how the web video service has always felt. Edit: I just realized that 3 of the albums are in the search results. I turns out the right tab is scrollable, and after 15 items, it switches to showing matching albums, which includes 3 of the 4 Daft Punk albums, and also some Macklemore.
- andrewguenther 12y ago
  I didn't notice this because nothing I was looking for ever actually showed up there (even though it is available through Prime Music).
__david__ 12y ago
Their iOS app seems to be a much better experience than the web site, where I kept getting accidentally shunted to the "digital music" department where the prime music wasn't highlighted.
- theplaz 12y ago
  The Windows Desktop app is much better as it's all in one place (like the iOS app). However you still have to "add" the music to play it.

L_Rahman 12y ago

1. Given my listening habits, the library feels limited. Tried searches for the three albums I listened to the most this month (http://www.last.fm/user/labibrahman/charts http://www.last.fm/user/labibrahman/charts): Sylvan Esso - Sylvan Esso Chet Faker - Built on Glass Tycho - Awake None are available for streaming. For a standalone service, this would be damning. As one of the perks offered with Prime this has the potential to become a compelling part of the package. 2. Amazon's store interface is not well suited for consuming media. I tried watching a few episodes of Friday Night Lights on the service instead of Netflix. Spoilers in episode descriptions meant that I had to very specifically control where I let my eyes over the UI. Next episodes don't auto play. Perhaps most annoyingly, there isn't a standalone URL I could go to for my streaming needs. To watch an episode I had to carry out the following steps: Navigate to amazon.com Search for Friday Night Lights Skim the results to click on the TV show Remember what season I was on Skim the episode descriptions while avoiding spoilers Click to stream, and make sure I don't accidentally click on the 1-click buy button which is annoyingly right next to the stream button. My flow on Netflix: Navigate to netflix.com Click on the continue watching pane on top left corner of my screen. I want Amazon to be a legitimate competitor in the space, but running everything through the store interface is killing any chance of me using Prime as a media consumption service. 3. I suspect that this works many orders of magnitude better on the Kindle Fire line of devices and that's great for people who already own Kindle Fires. If I don't already own one though, the Prime ecosystem should be driving to make that purchase and right now it is failing at that task.

chc 12y ago
I had the same result looking for my recent most-played bands. From what I've found so far, the only artists I like for whom they have good coverage are Dave Matthews Band and Pearl Jam. So I guess you're in luck if you love the '90s. Even the "popular artists" list that they're pimping on the front page is more striking for what's missing than what's there. They don't have the vast, vast majority of REM's discography (including "Automatic for the People"!), most of Pink's albums, anything by Cher besides "Believe", literally any of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' albums that you would have heard of (seriously, why are they even listed?), Shakira's "Laundry Service", "Oops!…I Did It Again" by Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake's second album — and that was just glancing around as I wrote this paragraph. The most confounding part is that there doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to what they have or don't have.

bradleybuda 12y ago

The UX for this is very awkward (unless I'm missing something) - the "store" and the "player" are completely disjoint experiences with only a few marketing links between them. You can't actually add new (free) "Prime Music" to your collection from the player - you have to jump to the "store" to discover the music you want and add it to your cloud library. Nor can you play full songs from the "store", even if you have Prime and they are free - you are limited to 30 second samples. The amazing thing about Rdio and Spotify, and what makes streaming services different than their MP3 purchasing predecessors, is that you can think "I want to listen to Kanye", type "Kanye" in to the search bar, press enter and listen. Amazon is making this whole process very awkward by adding a "buy" step (even if no money is changing hands). The reason that Spotify is disruptive isn't that the music is paid for via subscription pricing - it's that it eliminates the distinction between "music I own" and "all of the music ever recorded".

SilkRoadie 12y ago
It is no better than their Amazon Instant Video. Their video offering is pretty terrible. Takes ages to move between menus. You cannot just continue from where you were previously. It doesn't skip the credits and offer the next episode. The whole thing is painful to use compared to Netflix. Another example. Yesterday I was looking for a TV show I was watching. I went into "Your TV Shows" and it wasn't there. It had been pushed out by other shows I watched. Instead it appeared in "Recently Watched." It is so unintuitive. I have a prime account. I wouldn't mind cancelling Netflix and Spotify but can't while the user experience offered by Amazon is so horrible.
- cwyers 12y ago
  Amazon's UX on Prime Instant on the PC is so terrible, their discoverability on ANY platform is awful, and they have restricted HD streaming of Prime content (i.e., stuff you don't have to buy) to non-PC platforms only. And I've had far more problems with buffering on Prime Instant on Xbox 360 than I have ever had with Netflix, despite watching roughly five times as much content on Netflix. It's ridiculous. Their music offering looks like more of the same. Lower selection, poor discoverability, a second-class UI on PC. I really wish Amazon would stop re-purposing their storefront UI for every product they can, and actually design a decent UI for their various products.

greenyoda 12y ago

In addition to the music that's available via Prime, they have an "auto-rip" feature that automatically adds to your music library any tracks from physical CDs that you've purchased from Amazon in the past. Very nice.

thesimon 12y ago
Sometimes the price for the CD's with auto-rip is cheaper than the MP3 only price. Quite strange.
- brianwawok 12y ago
  I am sure it has to do with contracts and apple. "No one can sell the MP3 cheaper than we sell it".. but no mention of a CD + autorip. Or thats how I ended up with a frozen CD that cost -$.50

kmf 12y ago

Seems like the library is a little limited. As of tonight (2014-06-11 23:19 PST), two of the top songs on Rdio and Spotify are "Problem' by Ariana Grande and "Fancy" by Iggy Azalea. Neither are available on Prime Music, only for purchase on the normal MP3 Store. I suppose the advantage is a lot of people already have Prime, but I don't see any reason to jump ship from either Rdio or Spotify for this.

avalaunch 12y ago

For those wanting to compare this to Spotify, Amazon Prime Music has about 5% of the number of songs that Spotify does (1 million vs 20 million). Most notably, it's missing the entire Universal Music Group catalog as well as most new releases. At 20 dollars less per year than Spotify, while also offering Prime shipping and Prime movies, I can't imagine Amazon will be able to reach any sort of licensing arrangement where they have anywhere near the library Spotify has.

tonyblundell 12y ago
They'll probably run it at a loss until they have the subscriber numbers to make profit. As long as they get usable web/phone/xbox apps this will kill Spotify.

adamnemecek 12y ago

Well this product is dead on arrival http://i.imgur.com/hBVq7pp.png http://i.imgur.com/hBVq7pp.png

gamegoblin 12y ago
I just discovered that as well. And it just so happens that 3 of the songs by the artist I wanted were all non-prime. Very lame.
- talmand 12y ago
  Dead on arrival? How? Why is there the expectation that every song in an album would be free under Prime? "This free music is lame because it's not the music I wanted for free?" Do you tell stores their free samples suck because you wanted a free sample of a different product?
  - VikingCoder 12y ago
    I don't know how many people are like me, but the atomic unit of listening to music for me is an ALBUM, not a SONG. So, for people like me, to try to explain to people like you... Why is there the expectation that every second in a song would be free under Prime?
    - talmand 12y ago
      You shouldn't attempt to put people into groups before you know which groups people would belong to. Sure, I understand, there are many albums that I enjoy in the entirety and not so much with individual songs. You can always buy the albums. As for you question, such a thing already exists; they are called samples.
  - jamiesonbecker 12y ago
    Right! It's a FREE!! music sampling service that costs $100/year where you can hear a few selected songs in their entirety, but only through a spammy web app. AWESOME!

Lennu 12y ago

At first I thought it is free music without ads: "Unlimited, ad-free streaming. Free with Amazon Prime." I noticed "Listen free for 30 days", so there is some kind of trick here. I logged into the system and on the next screen they were asking for my credit card information which is needed to start a 30 day free trial on Amazon Prime (after it is $100/year). Prime is some kind of premium service for Amazon services. So, Amazon Prime Music is FREE if you BUY Amazon Prime. In my opinion that is not anyway free, well okay it is for 30 days after that you will get automaticly charged.

Domenic_S 12y ago
What exactly did you think "Free with Amazon Prime." meant?
andrewguenther 12y ago
"Free with Amazon Prime" makes this very clear. No tricks, just plain English.
ctdonath 12y ago
"Free with purchase" is common marketing terminology. You didn't expect a ginormous retailer would just give away millions of products for absolutely free (ad-free, no subscription, no cost whatsoever), did you?

quotient 12y ago

Wow. This is outstanding. Amazon is solidly developing a one-stop centralized base of entertainment. Even more enticing is that it's free with prime, and even if you don't have prime, it's worth getting prime for: a small fee for a year's access to most music/films you could want. And then you have prime, which makes it much more enticing to buy products on Amazon (due to cheaper, faster delivery). Smart. (I am aware that Amazon's music library is currently not as large as that of its competitors. I think it is reasonable to assume that this will change in the near future.) The more significant thing to note here is that the general trend in online businesses (obvious examples will include Google, Apple, and Facebook) is that every business is trying to create its own walled garden --- they try to provide all the services that any user could need, such that the user would not do business with any competitors, and so the user would interface with the business as much as possible. Apple did a remarkably good job at this with iTunes back in the day --- they were the first to provide access to a massive online store of entertainment and to integrate it very heavily with their products. Amazon, however, is taking the cake in this respect. Their products are extremely well-integrated: www.amazon.com is gradually becoming a one-stop-destination for most media and for general shopping. Perhaps this is due to Amazon's perseverance: I've never seen Amazon weaken its hold on a particular share of any market.

jbarham 12y ago
> I've never seen Amazon weaken its hold on a particular share of any market. I can see AWS being squeezed by outfits like Digital Ocean and Linode on the low end and Google Compute/App Engine on the high end. Anecdotally, I used to run some servers on AWS but moved them to DO & Linode as they're cheaper, faster & simpler.
- clarkm 12y ago
  Yeah, DigitalOcean and Linode are great if you just wanna run some servers. But AWS is much, much more than that.
  - derefr 12y ago
    It is; I just spent the last two weeks putting together a very handsome CloudFormation template that can attest to that. I'm almost considering creating a custom CF resource provider to let me spawn DigitalOcean droplets, though. (And to let me use CloudFlare CDN distributions instead of CloudFront ones. Amazon need to either finish CloudFront, or kill it; this purgatorial state where it works but it takes 30 minutes to make any changes, and where only half of its APIs are exposed in the SDK libraries, is obnoxious.)

lzlarryli 12y ago

The classical collection seems to be small. For example, 24098 out of 658027 (3.7%) pop albums are prime, but only 894 of 171251 (0.5%) classical albums are prime. I expected the other way (wishfully, as a fan of classical music), that older less popular music is cheaper to be made prime for Amazon. Strange.

kolev 12y ago
Isn't the classical also cheaper to license?
- justincormack 12y ago
  Not sure. The consumers of it are generally wealthier so it has always been a "premium" market, even if smaller. The fact that much of it is out of copyright doesnt mean you dont have to pay performance rights...
  - kolev 12y ago
    Makes sense. I also find myself primarily listening to classical music, and, as a side note, I hate that apps like Shazam, Google, and SoundHound can't recognize most of it.
    - justincormack 12y ago
      The search is also terrible, eg Spotify does not understand the semantics of composer vs performance, so although it has a lot it is very hard to find.
    - ternaryoperator 12y ago
      It's not just those services and apps, it's pretty much anything that has to do with music. Try rippig classical CDs and you quickly discover how bad the online music registries are at identifying albums, how bad ripping software is at sorting out composer from artist, etc. In nearly all aspects of software dealing with music, classical is the odd man out. It's a constant frustration.

TwistedWeasel 12y ago

Free (with purchased subscription)

mynameishere 12y ago

Searched for a number of things unsuccessfully then found that Neil Young is on it. Okay, tried to play "Harvest" and it refused. The previews for the same album work, but only after letting the Flash widget run (I use flashblock). The Prime videos use Silverlight, so that was never an issue. I can't find a widget hiding anywhere for the prime music, so I'm guessing that's a bug on their part. Or maybe I have it all wrong. Not going to waste time debugging their issues. Has anyone tried the amazon lending library? Absolute rubbish. At least this has Neil Young, but the problem is, you have to have nearly everything for it to work. And also you're competing with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8odlwI94uFA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8odlwI94uFA

plorg 12y ago
Tried it on Chrome/Linux. Audio appears to be played through a flash plugin (noted since I have "click to enable plugins" set). Checking the debugger, the service seems to use HTTP Live Streaming/m3u8 with 10-second, 400k mp2ts chunks. Digging a touch further, chunks are apparently encoded to 256-kbps AAC, and their URLs can be captured and replayed for up to an hour. Reconstituting tracks, then, is as simple as catting all the chunks together and running them through libav. I'm sure there are much easier ways to make unauthorized copies of music, but this actually seems fairly unprotected, though obviously not 'open', since it's using a flash-based player.

weisser 12y ago

> Over a million songs and hundreds of playlists. This line reads like it's by Rhapsody in 2002.

rjvir 12y ago

I don't see the point - it doesn't have Jason Derulo's latest album, nor does it have Ariana Grande's.

millstone 12y ago

Prime subscriber here. Cool beans. I found some of my favorites. But I also found a lot of spammy crap. I searched for Smashing Pumpkins, and it's pages of "1979 [A Tribute to the Smashing Pumpkins]" or "Disarm [In The Style Of The Smashing Pumpkins]". It takes some work to figure out, no, they don't actually have them. I'm reminded of Steve Jobs's line with the introduction of the iTMS: "This number [of songs] could have easily been much higher, if we wanted to let in every song. But we realize record companies do a great service. They edit!" Here's hoping they can grow their library, but in the meantime, please don't give me piss when I search for rain.

talmand 12y ago
But I thought keeping record companies as the gatekeepers was bad? I'd rather I decide for myself if I like a song or not and not a corporate business decision maker decide for me before I have a chance to hear it.
ctdonath 12y ago
Same reason I prefer iBooks over Kindle: the store is sensibly curated, not polluted with vague resemblances, knock-offs, and (worst) proliferation of really bad OCR conversions.

hkmurakami 12y ago

There was a playlist I actually wanted to listen to. I added it, and I was okay with the awkward checkout flow until it prompted me to enter credit card information, despite being logged into my regular Amazon account. At this point, I gave up and closed the window. I couldn't be bothered to enter this information when I already have various other streaming services. I wonder what their stats are like for the sign on funnel...

tendom 12y ago

Wooohooo, yet another amazon prime thing that isn't offered to Canadians. Considering we pay more, get "2 day shipping" which is actually 3 days because Amazon cant' seem to do math, and get no other services, and Amazon prices are rarely something to get excited about here, well Amazon, we're done. I just cancelled my amazon prime account. Apple, Netflix, and Google figured out ways to get media to Canada, but Amazon decided to suck donkey nuts... again.

yitchelle 12y ago
Do feel so bad. My amazon.de account in Germany also does not have this "prime" feature.
- tendom 12y ago
  Well, I pay $83 a year for prime, I just don't get anything special for it.

sytelus 12y ago

It costs $10 per month for on-demand streaming of 16 million songs in Rhapsody. By that calculation, this offer would cost $7.5 annually. So it's a smart move for Amazon to lure people to Prime by sacrificing small fraction of revenue. I'm a user of Rhapsody for almost 13 years now and love it not having to buy individual 100s of artists I listen to. Amazon's 1 million song collection is peanuts for me but for most others it might be enough. I see we are now only few months away from true commoditization of music business (i.e. pay monthly subscription to use all you want like electricity and water).

fargo 12y ago

Anybody knows if this is going to be available in the UK?

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

kolev 12y ago

Limited selection like Prime Instant Video, but at least it's available on Android (although the app doesn't seem to support the new service yet and is butt-ugly). On a side note, I don't really get why Amazon is twisting our arms and doesn't offer Instant Video on Android outside of Google TV and Kindle Fire. I care less about their free videos, but I've purchased digital content and I'm not able to watch it on my Android tablet. Do they really think they can make me buy Kindle Fire just for that?

tootie 12y ago
This is most interesting for me. They are deliberately withholding an android app for streaming video, but they are dipping their toes in with streaming music.
- kolev 12y ago
  They just updated their Amazon Music app in the Play Store. It's a complete revamp!

psychometry 12y ago

Isn't anyone interested in owning their music anymore? Have we all become such casual consumers of music that the concept of building a permanent library of music they like is unnecessary? I will never understand the appeal of subscription music services.

swombat 12y ago
You're not alone. My blood congeals at the idea that access to the music I love is somehow restricted by a third party with a different agenda to mine. I have zero interest in a third party streaming service. Now, if I could install my very own self-hosted Spotify-alike, stick all my music on there, and stream it to my devices with a smooth wireless connection that works even when I'm in tunnels, then you've got me as a streaming music customer.
- steelcm 12y ago
  I'm the complete opposite. I'm a bit of a tinkerer, so my hardware and OS are transient (flash a new build every 3 months). Instead of migrating data, my habits have instead slowly evolved to using SAAS. Don't get me wrong, I have a NAS drive somewhere with a load of music/movies on, but I just don't touch it anymore. It's easier to open up a browser and sign-in to grooveshark or google play.
- theplaz 12y ago
  The old version of Cloud Drive was pretty much that (except it was hosted on Amazon). Before Cloud Drive, I used Subsonic, which is self hosted. Though it never really worked all that well.
- stephenc_c_ 12y ago
  You can do that with Subsonic: http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp
  - err4nt 12y ago
    skip Subsonic and migrate to Plex. I do have a paid subscription because I love the software so much, but here's why it's so great: The media server can run on Windows, Mac, and Linux, so I have it set up on my web server. You can then use a client on Windows, Mac, iOS, or the web browser to stream music, photos, and movies. You can also share your library with other Plex users, so if you have libraries that are always online, consuming media from iOS for you and your friends can feel very much like your own private Netflix (and Rdio/grooveshark) It truly is the smoothest way to stream your own media, I've tried them all. http://plex.tv http://plex.tv

Semaphor 12y ago

Can't use it as Amazon knows about my German account. Weird that it isn't a problem for Instant Video. But I guess my next prime subscription will be on a new account that is only connected to the US. Maybe it will finally allow me to buy TV shows as well.

theplaz 12y ago

Not sure why I have to "add" to listen to Prime songs. Can't I play the full song before adding it to my library? I want to be careful what I add - it's kinda like a bookmark. I should be able to try it first.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

veidr 12y ago

Cool. Unlike most things Amazon, such as Prime video, this service works in Japan, using a US Amazon account. (I tested quickly using the Mac client for it.)

ctz 12y ago

Note that this only applies to US Amazon Prime accounts. If you are an Amazon Prime customer in another region, Amazon will ignore that and ask you to start another Amazon Prime subscription. But I doubt your second Prime account will actually come with any of the advertised benefits. Which, for an international company with accurate knowledge of my billing address, is misleading and hamfisted.

moystard 12y ago
Got surprised as well to see that they were proposing me subscribe to Prime when I have been a Prime member for more than a year. Realised that I was on the US website, and the music streaming does not seem to be accessible for UK customers.

paul_f 12y ago

Amazon loves running experiments. I am sure they will learn and improve. I'm not gonna drop Spotify for this, but imagine Amazon will improve this over time and make it more useful. Hopefully enough to where I can drop the $100/yr Spotify subscriptions.

joeblau 12y ago

> Over a million songs and hundreds of playlists. When applications like Hip Hop[1] exist and are advertising 45 million songs, a million doesn't seem that impressive. [1] - http://gethiphop.net/ http://gethiphop.net/

digitalsushi 12y ago

I am a USA prime account holder with an account that was renewed in January of this year (2014). I was curious why the amazon prime music page indicated I needed to upgrade my account, so, I clicked 'upgrade for 99 dollars'. It went ahead and renewed my prime account with today's date, and sent me a new welcome email. It's completely unclear if it has consumed my previous subscription with over half a year left. So be cautious... probably I did not read enough!

talmand 12y ago
I would ask support about that, Amazon seems to be usually adept at handling such service calls. They handled our complaints in the past that were similar to this quite nicely.
digitalsushi 12y ago
My edit expired - Here is the deal. A person can share Amazon Prime with other people - family, friends, etc - but the primary benefits such as this music are available to only the primary email address holder. So when I said 'upgrade account', even though the Verify Prime indicated Active, it was not active for music. The upgrade button instantly charges 99 dollars.

TheCraiggers 12y ago

This has the same problems that I have with Prime Video: 1) The interface is rather horrid when compared to services in the same category, like Netflix. Others have already expounded on this though, so I won't waste the bytes. 2) I hate, hate, HATE being told I have access to all these movies/songs, only to find that the content I searched for isn't available to stream unless I pay extra money on top of the service I already have. Logically I say that it's better to have extra options- but I've never gotten as mad at Netflix for not having what I want to watch as I've gotten at Amazon for having what I want to watch, but needing to pay extra.

bredman 12y ago
Interesting, I've have had the exact opposite experience for #2. If there's a movie, or TV show that I want to watch I'd rather pay $5 to watch it than just be told it's not available. This has had such a strong effect on me that if there's something in particular I want to watch I go to Amazon before Netflix simply because I know I will more likely have an option to watch what I want (even if it costs money). Personally I feel like Netflix has back themselves into a corner by only having one all-inclusive price level. That said the part about Amazon that infuriates me is when they have the movies available but not for rent and only offer the pay $15 to own option. Also the Netflix discovery/browse is experience is light years better than Amazon's.

willu 12y ago

I was actually pretty excited about this because they happen to have a lot of music I listen to (electronic). I loaded up about two dozen albums and downloaded their Android MP3 app. Tried to play a track and was told the track was no longer Prime eligible. The whole album grayed out and when accessed says "We're sorry but this album is no longer available in Amazon's catalog".

scdc 12y ago

Would love to see this work in the Sonos app. I'm a Prime member & just added a bunch of albums to my Amazon Music Player via web browser. Switched to Sonos and the AMP, but only see the ones I've purchased.

taskstrike 12y ago

A lot of comments seems to be negative on this. As a amazon prime subscriber, this is great for me, here's why: 1. I have amazon prime for their delivery, and this is basically a free music service for my mobile that is unmatched by anything else. (Free spotify sucks on mobile in comparison, and can't be used offline) 2. Downloaded songs basically gives me a library and allows me to use the song everywhere. 3. A million songs is a lot, unless you listen a lot to very esoteric bands, it works well. The app is crashing on search for me, but it doesn't matter, the content is so great I will keep going back. Amazon Prime video already trumped netflix with their HBO library acquisition. I am psyched to see what they will try next.

joshstrange 12y ago

This is another case (IMHO) of Amazon being a "Jack of all trades, King of none". Prime delivery is awesome, they are king in that arena but video/music is seriously lacking in the UI/UX department. They have decent content for free on Instant Video but it doesn't keep track of what you have watched and navigating is a massive PITA. Their music selection is sparse and that's me being kind... I paused my Spotify to check out their OS X app and couldn't believe how terrible it is. Search is confusing and navigating my library is not intuitive at all. I will keep an eye on it but they should not have released it in this state.

yellowapple 12y ago

I like the idea, but it seems to be poorly executed with the absolutely-dismal selection of Prime-eligible music. Good albums missing, good songs missing, even entire artists missing (even ones that were at one point pretty mainstream; Sublime, for example). Amusingly, when searching for "Let It Go", I ended up with virtually every song titled "Let It Go" that's not sung by Idina Menzel (speaking of which, the only Idina Menzel songs available are from Glee, and there are a whole two of them that are actually sung by Idina Menzel). Disney's probably to blame for that one, but still.

pessimizer 12y ago

I wish they would quit rolling all of this shit into a giant monoproduct. I just want to prepay for postage. edit: Is this why they raised the prices for Prime? If so, the fact that I will never use it means they're saying that they don't want me as a customer.

scottm01 12y ago

Amazon's cloud player was the first music locker I tried (I believe in the US it predated Spotify along with google music and certainly icloud/itunes integration). I keep forgetting to cancel my prime account, so I thought I'd check this out. Beyond the comments above about UX and library content, I was surprised to find I no longer have access to my uploaded songs unless I upgrade to something called "Cloud Player Premium". No thanks.

nickfox 12y ago

After reading about this on Hacker News, I went straight there to find my current favorite song, Happy, by Pharrell Williams. It wasn't there so I bought it for a $1.29. I wasn't happy. Then, I listened to the song a few times and I was happy again.

MikeTV 12y ago

I want to like this... with Amazon video, I can read reviews, see related items, and play the video on the same page. With Amazon music I can read reviews and find related items, but to play it I must first 1) add it to my library, 2) navigate to the cloud player 3) search for the album in my library, 4) click play. After finding an album using Amazon reviews and related items, this is faster: 1) Search GrooveShark/YouTube from the Chrome URL bar, 2) click play.