Amazon Prime Music’s top playlist: ’50 Great Epic Classic Rock Songs’
Despite a limited music library, Amazon Inc.’s new Prime Music feature has streamed tens of millions of songs in the week-plus since its release, the company said Monday.
In a news release, the online retailer didn’t specify how many of the tens of millions of members of the $99-a-year Amazon Prime program had tried out the new 1 million-song offering. But it said users had added tens of millions of songs and more than 1 million Prime Playlists to their music libraries.
Analysts have described the music service as more of an extra benefit to make a Prime subscription worthwhile rather than as being major competitor to Spotify, Pandora, Rhapsody, Rdio or Beats Music. Amazon Prime subscribers also get free two-day shipping, access to a digital books lending library and video streaming of some movies and TV episodes.
Prime Music doesn’t have the newest music nor access to records from Universal Music Group, the world’s largest music corporation. That appeared evident in Amazon’s announcement Monday that listed the most popular tracks on Prime Music as the dance anthem “Timber” by Pitbull and Ke$ha and the emotional song “All of Me” by John Legend.
The top two tracks on Billboard’s top 100 list are not available on Prime Music: “Fancy” by Iggy Azalea and Charli XCX and “Problem” by Ariana Grande and Iggy Azalea.
To get past the limited selection, Amazon has touted its curated playlists. On Monday, it said “50 Great Epic Classic Rock Songs” has been the most popular, followed by “Pop to Make You Feel Better” and “50 Great Classic Rock Songs.”
“Prime members across the country have been rockin’ out this week, exceeding our expectations for how well this new benefit would be received,” Steve Boom, Amazon’s vice president for digital music, said in a statement.
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