back to article Amazon threatens UK with James Blunt, muscles into music streaming

Not content with crushing the high street, touting cloud services, and dominating e-books, Amazon has launched a music streaming service set to rival Spotify and Apple Music in the world of heavily marketed, mediocre pop acts. Amazon Prime members will now have access to one million songs and hundreds of playlists, it said. …

  1. Martin Summers Silver badge

    Now all they need to do is make that payment a monthly option and I might just take them up on it. Any company that wants my money upfront for a service that could change in some way during my sub isn't going to get it.

    1. Fink-Nottle

      Amazon prime is available as a monthly subscription.

      1. Martin Summers Silver badge

        "Amazon prime is available as a monthly subscription."

        Is it? I must have been asleep... I've not seen the option promoted or advised to me when I finished my trial. I will have to check that out. Cheers guys.

        1. Martin Summers Silver badge

          I just checked my account settings and went to upgrade. It only offered me the £79 a year option or Amazon Instant which I already pay monthly for. So either you guys are in the US and they offer that there or you're in a secret Amazon club :-)

          1. Geoffrey W

            I'm in the States and I cant find the option either. Unless it appears very late in the sign up process then it isn't there. I don't want to keep clicking buttons in case I click a button too far and end up with a $100 debit and a prime membership I don't yet want. So they must be secret Amazonians

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Martin Summers,

      I think if you pay upfront, then it's just slightly cheaper than going monthly.

  2. hatti

    Server management

    Bod monitoring the server for James Blunt downloads will not have much to do, just keep an eye out for the one flash from the led panel as JB completes his purchase.

  3. John Arthur
    Thumb Up

    "in the world of heavily marketed, mediocre pop acts"

    Go on, don't hold back. Say what you really feel!

    1. choleric

      Re: "in the world of heavily marketed, mediocre pop acts"

      They can't do that because it's a streaming pile of audio-repugnant filth.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Its impressive stuff...

    "We are unable to complete your action. Please try again later."

  5. Cynical Observer

    Long way from usable

    Tried this morning - with some mainstream and some slightly more esoteric music choices. There was only a subset of the mainstream artists' material available via the Prime subscription.

    Times like this my Luddite tendencies come to the fore and I think that streaming will be an option when you prise the album from my cold fingers...... There's still something nice about having the physical media

    1. JDX Gold badge

      Re: Long way from usable

      I like owning the physical album too. It sits on my shelf while I stream it or play the MP3.

    2. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      Re: Long way from usable

      Is that a bit like where you sign up to Prime Video and it gives you this huge list of stuff to watch. It's only when you click on the picture that you notice that this isn't actually on the streaming service you signed up for, it's just an advert for something you can buy from Amazon. And there's no filter option for just showing you the stuff you've already paid for.

      That was a free trial that ended in swearing. Took it up at Christmas, not only was it not compatible with my Gooogle Chromecast, but they'd even deliberately blocked the workaround, using the Chrome browser on the PC. And I could barely find any content. I lost a lot of customer loyalty to Amazon that day.

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: Long way from usable

        The app and (I'm fairly sure) the website make it pretty trivial to filter video content that's available on Prime from that you have to buy, and the mobile app (iOS anyhow) lets you see content you own separately. The website is certainly not as nice though.

  6. Teiwaz
    Facepalm

    Huzzah!!

    Just what is needed. Another generic streaming service.

    Amazon is another 'service?' that needs to do a 'de-google+' on it's services. I quite like the free delivery option, video (all flash last I checked) is mostly stuff I might watch (but not pay to watch expicitly) and I don't have a kindle so the book lending library is useless to me.

    It's getting that they're going to have to re-title 'Desert island discs' 'streaming' discs and 'golden records 'golden streams'. Any better suggestions?

    This post brought to by the word 'generic' (found I had it in 3 times before preview)) and the number 2 (as in the old 'crap' reference).

    1. Baldie
      Pint

      Re: Huzzah!!

      I don't have any better suggestions, but pretty certain that 'golden streams' is a non-starter. People might gag on that.

      Mine's a pint - of beer.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Huzzah!!

        Don't cross the streams!

      2. Teiwaz
        Thumb Up

        Re: Huzzah!!

        > "I don't have any better suggestions, but pretty certain that 'golden streams' is a non-starter. People might gag on that.

        Mine's a pint - of beer."

        Not if you learn to breath through your nose while swallowing...

        "Your album is out... is it going to be big, now it's out?... Are you proud of it, now it's out?"

        Double Entendre - Bad News

  7. John Lilburne

    None of these services cooperate

    Most of my 1200+ LPs, Tapes, and CDs have been digitized. For my pain I use iTunes as the main hub of the collection and feed plays into last.fm neither of which can agree what album or track names should be, neither of which agree on the artist names. Example if you rip a CD in iTunes it sometimes identifies the album, artist, and tracks. But then it can't find the artwork until you change the name of the CD or artist, after which it can no longer identify it in the iTunes store. Additionally last.fm won't recognise the CD/track you are playing until you change it to some other variant. Throw autorip downloads from Amazon into the mix and you have yet another variation where iTunes doesn't understand the album and last.fm doesn't understand the track names.

    Then we can add in the 100 or so albums that no one has heard of, cos they were obscure blues, jazz, or folk stuff from the 50s-70s.

    No I don't want any of this streaming stuff its nothing but pain.

  8. Ermintrude

    It's teh future - embrace it

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      If...

      the future is paying again and again and again and again for every song I listen to

      the future means that the streaming service gets to know my likes

      the future means that every time I listen to a particular track I get 'we thought you might like... ' adverts

      the future means that the device I use to play the songs I have already bought phones home to the streaming company/record company mothership

      the future means that the device I use has to be connected to the Internet more than once a month.

      the future means that I have to pay mobile data charges when not connected to WiFi.

      Then Stop the world, I wanna get off.

      Please understand that streaming is NOT for everyone. Ok?

      Now I'm going to get back to listening to the MJQ.

  9. Yugguy

    My musical tastes

    My taste ranges from Handel's Messiah, splashes through some Muddy Waters and Creative Source, via The Skids, by Nirvana into the Offspring, verges a little onto Manowar and ends up with Tool.

    To name but a few.

    Oh and the nipper sometimes uses my devices to look at bubblegum stuff like Taylor Swift or Meghan Trainor.

    I've not found any service that can really cope with that.

  10. Gordon 10
    Thumb Up

    Since its a freebie

    onto of my pre-existing Prime subscription - I cant see the harm.

    Im not likely to use it more than occasionally but no harm no foul in my book. Its gotta be an improvement on the tripe that's on Prime Instant Video.

    Currently enjoying the Don't Call This Emo playlist - although I own a good half of it already. Thanks El Reg.

  11. Sarah Balfour

    Downloaded app…

    threw a dozen bands at it, couldn't find any of 'em, deleted.

  12. Matt 52
    FAIL

    It's broken...

    APM doesn't recognise you as a Prime subscriber if you have both a .co.uk and a .com account with Prime only on the .co.uk (as i suspect a lot of people have).

    Their tech support is amazingly helpful (yep, that's sarcasm, in case you were wondering)

    "I'm sorry to hear that you are unable to play Amazon Prime Music even though you have subscribed for Amazon Prime Membership. We are aware of this issue, and our developers are working on a solution"

    Pretty damn obvious thing to have tested before release i'd have thought, but apparently not.

    1. VinceH

      Re: It's broken...

      "APM doesn't recognise you as a Prime subscriber if you have both a .co.uk and a .com account with Prime only on the .co.uk (as i suspect a lot of people have)."

      That describes me - and prompted me to try it. I'm now listening to one of the their stock playlists via the web browser.

      Could it be a cookie issue (Amazon's don't live beyond the session here)?

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