Amazon Music videos are here for Unlimited subscribers – making it a strong contender to YouTube Music.
Amazon is focusing on making its Amazon Music Unlimited experience better for music lovers. It features support for behind-the-scenes information about top songs, and it’s working to integrate podcasts throughout the app. But now, the app is officially bringing music videos to Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers.
The feature is rolling out slowly, and Amazon isn’t sharing how many music videos will be available at first. Amazon says it will curate some video playlists to help its listeners discover new music and artists. The videos feature is only available to paying customers – unlike YouTube Music where videos are free.
Prime members get Amazon Music Unlimited for $7.99/month, which is $2 cheaper than without a subscription. Amazon says it now has a catalog of over 70 million songs available for streaming and offline listening. Integrating music videos into Amazon Music shouldn’t be that much of a surprise.
Amazon is working overtime to make sure artists use Twitch as their favored streaming platform – music videos are just part of that.
Amazon Music now allows artists to share when they’re live streaming, giving fans instant notification. It’s becoming a go-to way to connect with fans across the globe – and a primary income earner for some artists.
“After linking their accounts, a musician’s Twitch stream will appear on their artist page inside the Amazon Music app,” the company stated. Notifications are then sent to followers the instant a stream goes live. This new Twitch integration also helps with discoverability.
A new ‘Live’ page inside the Amazon Music app highlights anyone who is currently broadcasting. It’s very similar to the way TikTok’s ‘Discover’ page works, in which viral content is highlighted on a single page for the site’s viewers to peruse. The one big limitation of this integration is that the audience has no way to interact with the performer. Chat and tips are still limited to the Twitch app – which also provides the same notifications.
Amazon says its Amazon Music platform has around 55 million customers. It is seeking to grow that number by offering more content that is music-adjacent and not just new tracks themselves.
It’s something both Spotify and Apple Music are embracing, too. Podcasts are becoming an increasingly important part of the streaming industry. Spoken word content is growing year-over-year, with the best years of podcast growth still expected to be ahead of us.