Four months after launching their premier Prime service into Australia, US e-tailer Amazon has added Prime Music to the list of benefits subscribers receive at no extra cost.
Prime Music offers access to 2 million tracks, which can be played through the Amazon Music app on your phone or tablet, or on your Amazon Echo.
Amazon Music isn’t just open slather though, it appears to be ad-supported though Prime Subscribers get 40 hours of ad-free listening. The launch of Amazon Music in Australia sees more than 200 locally curated playlists and stations added to the service with a range of different focuses ranging from relaxing alternative music through to Hip-Hop workouts.
David Ray, Amazon’s head of music for Australia and New Zealand said of the launch
It’s been incredible to see the feedback from customers since launching Amazon Music’s premium tier, Amazon Music Unlimited, for Australia earlier this year. With today’s launch of Prime Music, we’re excited to deliver another listening experience with Amazon Music built specifically for our Prime members, and to introduce even more ways of discovering and rediscovering music with voice through Alexa at absolutely no additional cost to their Prime membership.
Launched back in June, Amazon Prime costs $59/year or $4.99/month until the 31st of January 2019 when it jumps to $6.99/month – with a 30-day free trial at the front.
The initial Amazon Prime service in Australia was fairly bare bones, with additional perks including access to Amazon Prime Video, Prime Reading and Twitch Prime game streaming which also included ‘a selection of free games every month to keep forever, access to free in-game loot, and a premium experience on Twitch’. Adding in Prime Music is another small bonus.
Small is the operative word here, with streaming services from Spotify, Google Play Music and even Apple Music offering in excess of 40 million tracks each. Even Amazon’s own Amazon Unlimited Music service which has also launched in Australia is far more vast, offering access to up to 50 million tracks so it’s an odd choice to offer access to only 2 million tracks.
Still, if you’re an Australian Amazon Prime subscriber then you can now count Amazon Prime Music amongst your perks.
So… Is there a way to search the 2M catalogue? Or generally differentiate what’s in and out compared to the 50M catalogue?