Amazon Opens Music Catalog to Prime Members

Amazon Music is gearing up for a massive content expansion: The streaming giant will offer a full catalog of music with more than 100 million songs for Prime members. The streaming service told the AP that members will gain hundreds of millions of songs—a huge increase from 2 million—in shuffle mode without any advertisement at no additional costs. It will also include most top podcasts ad-free, including Wondery’s catalog of premium shows along with series like “MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories” and Keke Palmer’s new original podcast “Baby, this is Keke Palmer.”

Amazon Music says the decision behind the huge increase came after customers pressed for access to a full catalog of music. Now, members will be able to shuffle play any music artist, album, or playlist with the option to upgrade to the Amazon Music Unlimited tier to get on-demand access, which has spatial audio along with songs in HD and Ultra HD. The monthly subscription for that is $9, per the Verge. "Amazon Music is now essentially Spotify minus the ads for anyone already paying for Prime," the website ads. Members will be able to listen to shows ad-free from major media outlets such as CNN, ESPN, NPR, and the New York Times.

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