“If you’re already a paying subscriber to Spotify, or huge fan of Pandora, nothing in Amazon’s new Prime Music offering, introduced Thursday, will make you want to switch,” Jefferson Graham reports for USA Today. “That’s not really the point. Because if you’re already shelling out $99 a year for two-day free shipping, you just got another reason to keep your plan.”
“Because beyond the shipping, you now also get access to a limited collection of 1 million songs from two of the three major music labels (as opposed to 20 million on Spotify) and 40,000 movies and TV episodes,” Graham reports. “You can now listen to artists like Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Alicia Keys, Miranda Lambert, Bruno Mars and more on demand, selecting the album and cut you want to hear as you can do a monthly subscription service like Spotify, Slacker, Rdio or Beats Music.”
“What you won’t find are a lot of hits,” Graham reports. “If you’re already a subscriber, you’ll find 30-second song samples pop up when you try to hear a song. What you’re supposed to do is locate the tune, then save it to your Amazon library. Then take another step by navigating your way there to actually hear the complete music.”
“The problem with subscription music is sometimes we just don’t know what we want to hear, so Amazon has many programmed playlists to keep you entertained,” Graham reports. “But if you like Sting, Rihanna, Robin Thicke and Taylor Swift, you’re out of luck at Prime Music. These artists record for Universal Music, the world’s largest music label, which hasn’t come to terms with Prime. Warner and Sony Music have.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Pfft.
Apple’s iTunes Radio offers over 37 million tracks – from all major (and minor) labels – and is free for all users and ad-free for iTunes Match subscribers (US$24.99/year).
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]