Amazon Music.

Hagar7

Amazon launches Spotify rival in the UK

Library of ‘over 40 million’ songs available with monthly or annual subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited

Amazon is launching its Spotify rival, Amazon Music Unlimited, in the UK with a headline price of £9.99 a month and access to a library of “over 40 million” songs.

Those figures are comparable to competitors like Spotify and Apple Music, but where Amazon is focusing its competition is on a pair of special offers, as well as the tight integration with its own hardware ecosystem.

The service is cheaper for those with an Amazon Prime subscription, the company’s all-you-can-eat free delivery package. The monthly cost drops by £2, to £7.99, and an annual payment plan is available for £79 a year, taking the equivalent monthly fee to £6.58.

That’s how Amazon is hoping to entice users to upgrade from its other free streaming service, Amazon Prime Music. That service comes free with Amazon Prime, and offers a much more limited catalogue of just 2 million tracks (that figure has increased by 500,000 to coincide with the launch of Music Unlimited). Amazon’s head of Digital Music, Paul Firth, says that Prime Music is intended to be a gateway service for users who wouldn’t otherwise pay for a separate streaming service, with Music Unlimited the obvious next step.

But there’s an even cheaper option for some. Owners of Amazon’s Echo systems, the company’s range of smart speakers, can sign up for a heavily reduced subscription to Music Unlimited that only works with one Echo per subscription. The monthly fee is just £3.99, a cut that Amazon has reportedly arranged in conjunction with the publishers (as opposed to the discount for Prime members, which is apparently coming out of Amazon’s pocket).

That subscription, which can only be purchased with a voice command directly from an Echo, also enables Amazon to push its other killer app: a collection of smart voice controls that let users ask for music from the smart speakers without needing to think of a specific artist or song.


One set of controls lets users ask for music by a time period, genre or mood: “sad indie music from the 90s”, for instance, or “happy 80s pop music”. The idea, Firth says, is to let music fans skip the step of having to think of a specific band that meets their mood, and just describe their mood directly.

Tracks in the database have been tagged with up to 11 moods; each of the moods had 5,000 songs tagged manually, and then machine learning took over. The same tags can be applied on a narrower basis, letting users ask for “Oasis songs from before 1997” or “happy Radiohead songs”.

Another set of controls is based on an enormous lyrics database that Amazon has integrated with its streaming service. Users can ask for a song based on its lyrics (“Play the song that goes ‘Sasquatch, King Kong, Godzilla, Loch Ness’ [Monster by Kanye West, in case you are wondering]”), or tap on a particular line in the Amazon Music app to jump straight there.

Amazon is also attempting to take on Spotify in an area where the latter is already strong: personalised playlists and recommendations. Spotify’s Discover Weekly, Daily Mix and Release Radar functionality, which create personalised playlists based on the users’ previous activity, have been well-received by the userbase, but Amazon is hoping that its own success in shopping recommendations will transfer over.

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...ival-in-the-uk

jakdublin

Here's a different link here as that one doesn't work for me. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/dmusic/promotions/AmazonMusicUnlimited/

Not sure if this qualifies as a bargain alert. There is a family plan for six for £14.99 a month so people could team up, like many of us did here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=101255017

Don't know if it's available in Ireland though, as Prime Music isn't afaik. Maybe this thread should be elsewhere.

Hagar7

jakdublin wrote: »

Here's a different link here as that one doesn't work for me. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/dmusic/promotions/AmazonMusicUnlimited/

Not sure if this qualifies as a bargain alert. There is a family plan for six for £14.99 a month so people could team up, like many of us did here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=101255017

Don't know if it's available in Ireland though, as Prime Music isn't afaik. Maybe this thread should be elsewhere.

Cheers mate,yep,I think admin might want to move it,looks a good deal TBH.

JimsAlterEgo

Payment method does not match country

To sign up for Amazon Music , the payment method you use must match the country the subscription is associated with. Please add a new payment method or cancel.

:mad:

loughrey

This isn't available in Ireland and you need a UK issued credit card, Irish cards won't work. Use Revolut to get around it. I have it and love it way more than Spotify as there's 10 million more songs and indispensable if you have an Amazon Echo. I'm on the Echo Plan for 3.99 as I only used Spotify on the Echo

degsie

loughrey wrote: »

This isn't available in Ireland and you need a UK issued credit card, Irish cards won't work. Use Revolut to get around it. I have it and love it way more than Spotify as there's 10 million more songs and indispensable if you have an Amazon Echo. I'm on the Echo Plan for 3.99 as I only used Spotify on the Echo

How do you order via Echo, is there a specific voice command?

Ballyv24

loughrey wrote: »

This isn't available in Ireland and you need a UK issued credit card, Irish cards won't work. Use Revolut to get around it. I have it and love it way more than Spotify as there's 10 million more songs and indispensable if you have an Amazon Echo. I'm on the Echo Plan for 3.99 as I only used Spotify on the Echo

Do you need a vpn as well? Or was there any other setup needed to get this to work in Ireland?

loughrey

degsie wrote: »

How do you order via Echo, is there a specific voice command?

Echo won't complete the order unless you have a UK issued card, she'll just say 'there's a problem with your payment method'. You need a UK issued card or the Revolut card I mentioned to use it. Just say, 'Alexa, try Amazon Music Unlimited', or if you ordered via the website say 'Alexa, downgrade Amazon Music Unlimited' to get the Echo 3.99 plan. I have this plan and it's nice to be able to say part of the lyrics of a song and she'll know the song you want.

loughrey

Ballyv24 wrote: »

Do you need a vpn as well? Or was there any other setup needed to get this to work in Ireland?

No, doesn't seem to be VPN blocked as they are restricting the service via blocking international credit cards.

Hagar7

loughrey wrote: »

No, doesn't seem to be VPN blocked as they are restricting the service via blocking international credit cards.

Eh?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=1204872

loughrey

Hagar7 wrote: »

Eh?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=1204872

Not sure what you're trying to say? You put a link to a page about Amazon's delivery policy. I have Amazon Music Unlimited and Amazon Prime Music and I play it all over town, so i personally don't need VPN to access it. You do with Amazon Video though. Best thing to do is take out a free trial and see if it works for you. It works for me perfectly and I wouldn't ever go back to Spotify. Love it on my Amazon Echo.

Hootanany

i tried to get the free trial with my Revolut card and it said wrong country, should I change my address to Parcel Motel one?

loughrey

Hootanany wrote: »

i tried to get the free trial with my Revolut card and it said wrong country, should I change my address to Parcel Motel one?

You need to got a Revolut card by telling Revolut that you're from the UK, so they issue you are UK card. If you look for an Irish Revolut card it will be Irish issued.

MBSnr

loughrey wrote: »

You need to got a Revolut card by telling Revolut that you're from the UK, so they issue you are UK card. If you look for an Irish Revolut card it will be Irish issued.

Are you sure? AFAIK the cards are all issued from the UK so appear as UK valid card numbers.

What you will need to do is set your address in the Revolut app to a UK one.

MBSnr

Hootanany wrote: »

i tried to get the free trial with my Revolut card and it said wrong country, should I change my address to Parcel Motel one?

Yes. I used mine with UK address and it worked.

Hagar7

loughrey wrote: »

Not sure what you're trying to say? You put a link to a page about Amazon's delivery policy. I have Amazon Music Unlimited and Amazon Prime Music and I play it all over town, so i personally don't need VPN to access it. You do with Amazon Video though. Best thing to do is take out a free trial and see if it works for you. It works for me perfectly and I wouldn't ever go back to Spotify. Love it on my Amazon Echo.

No,I meant what you posted above re what you can get.
As for AE,I've a good friend who works for John Lewis and many folk don't like the sound reproduction from it,tbh I haven't heard it myself so I can't really comment on it.

uck51js9zml2yt

Hagar7 wrote: »

No,I meant what you posted above re what you can get.
As for AE,I've a good friend who works for John Lewis and many folk don't like the sound reproduction from it,tbh I haven't heard it myself so I can't really comment on it.

I've a dot and the music is fine

Mister Gooey

I can get Amazon Music to work on my PC and Android phone but not my Echo Dot. Any ideas out there why?

degsie

Mister Gooey wrote: »

I can get Amazon Music to work on my PC and Android phone but not my Echo Dot. Any ideas out there why?

Is it available as an option in "Choose default music services" in alexa app or web settings?

Mister Gooey

degsie wrote:

Is it available as an option in "Choose default music services" in alexa app or web settings?

Yes. It is available and even refers to my account.

degsie

Mister Gooey wrote: »

Yes. It is available and even refers to my account.

What voice command are you using?

Mister Gooey

Sorted. Had to change my residence address details to a UK address and digital marketplace details to amazon.co.uk (not amazon.com)

yak

loughrey wrote: »

This isn't available in Ireland and you need a UK issued credit card, Irish cards won't work. Use Revolut to get around it. I have it and love it way more than Spotify as there's 10 million more songs and indispensable if you have an Amazon Echo. I'm on the Echo Plan for 3.99 as I only used Spotify on the Echo

Care to share a bit more info on this, do you need a resolut card? I was thinking of using a prepaid card but wasn't sure that they would give me a UK Card number... anyone have any ideas??

Doodah7

yak wrote: »

Care to share a bit more info on this, do you need a resolut card? I was thinking of using a prepaid card but wasn't sure that they would give me a UK Card number... anyone have any ideas??

One aspect of Amazon Music is that it allows a user to take out a subscription that is tied to one, specific Amazon Echo product only at any one time. For £3.99 per month, a user can have Amazon Music on their Dot or full Echo device. If you have another echo device, tablet or whatever, this specific cheap Amazon Music subscription will not play on those other devices and to have Amazon Music on these other devices you need the full £9.99 sub.

To activate the £3.99 sub on a specific echo device, simply say 'Alexa, try Amazon music unlimited'. Confusingly this starts the cheap sub but also a month's free trial to the whole system which DOES allow playback on any device with the Amazon Music app installed. However after the month, this expires and you are left with the echo device sub only.

If you have changed all of your Amazon media settings to the UK, you will require a UK billable card. For this use a Revolut card as it is UK based, once you input the card number, Amazon sees this as a UK card, will take a test payment at the time of initiation of the trial and will then deduct from a sterling Revolut balance monthly.

mcquaim

Doodah7 wrote: »

If you have changed all of your Amazon media settings to the UK, you will require a UK billable card. For this use a Revolut card as it is UK based, once you input the card number, Amazon sees this as a UK card, will take a test payment at the time of initiation of the trial and will then deduct from a sterling Revolut balance monthly.

I already had a Prime account but when I got my echo last week I couldn't get the music to play. When I launch it in the browser it will look for a credit card.

I tried my Irish one but it kept failing so when I went looking I found this thread...

So, I have created and verified my Revolut account but when I enter the card details in Amazon music it still throws the error but it still takes the £1 each try..

I've tried with a UK and Irish postal address..

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

Cheers..

__..__

I have amazon prime and live in ireland and i cant get an app to play the music.
Where is the app does anyone know?

Del007

__..__ wrote: »

I have amazon prime and live in ireland and i cant get an app to play the music.
Where is the app does anyone know?

https://www.apkmonk.com/app/com.amazon.mp3/

mcquaim

__..__ wrote: »

I have amazon prime and live in ireland and i cant get an app to play the music.
Where is the app does anyone know?

Well, the Amazon Music app isn’t in the Ireland App Store, I had to switch to the UK one to download it..

But, still can’t get music to play as mentioned above...

__..__

mcquaim wrote: »

Well, the Amazon Music app isn’t in the Ireland App Store, I had to switch to the UK one to download it..

But, still can’t get music to play as mentioned above...

Prime is a total waste of money in Ireland. Is there anything it is useful for at all?

mcquaim

__..__ wrote: »

Prime is a total waste of money in Ireland. Is there anything it is useful for at all?

I use it for local collect and free postage but if you’re not near the border then it’s of no use at all..

uck51js9zml2yt

I use it for prime to PM. Movies and free Kindle lending library.

gomara

I've had prime for 2 years now and and in combination with PM or AP its very useful, free 1-2 day delivery of pretty much everything to either of them, so you get all orders within 3 days. Also, as the previous poster mentions , kindle and Amazon Prime Video, great for the Grand Tour!