Amazon Music for free: Here's how you can stream top playlists, radio stations at no cost

E-commerce giant Amazon has launched a new, free version of Amazon Music, as expected. Aimed at Amazon Alexa voice assistant users, the new Amazon Music app is supported by advertisements. This is currently limited to users in the U.S. Alexa users will have access to top Amazon Music playlists and thousands of radio stations at no additional cost. 

How it works

It offers limited to access to Amazon’s music library. Additionally, it is only available through Alexa. Upon requesting a song, it takes users to Amazon playlists or radio station instead of albums. From what it looks like, Amazon is may be testing this platform with select users. In the future though, Amazon could develop it into a full-fledged ad-supported music streaming service to compete with Spotify.

Amazon provides users with free music streaming experience through the company’s Echo range of smart speakers. But it offers a very limited music catalogue.

Commenting on the development, here is what Amazon has to say:

“Customers in the U.S. who do not yet have a Prime membership or a subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited will now be able to listen to an ad-supported selection of top playlists and stations for free with Amazon Music on compatible Alexa-enabled devices,” Amazon said.

READ | YouTube is coming back to Amazon Fire TV devices, Prime Video is coming back to Google Chromecast and Android TVs

Amazon Music commands for Alexa

Following are some of the commands that Amazon users can use with the Alexa voice assistant.

• "Alexa, play the playlist Pop Culture" to hear the ultimate global playlist for today's pop music.
• "Alexa, play the Imagine Dragons station" to hear a station inspired by the popular rock band.
• "Alexa, play 80s music" to hear a station filled with music from the era.
• "Alexa, play country music" to hear a station with some of the best in the genre.

We are seeking more clarity in how it will affect the on-going competition with Spotify boasting about 207 million users. Apple Music, on the other hand, has about 56 million paid subscribers, which is proportional to the number of iPhone units Apple manages to sell every year.