Music News

In Case You Missed It, Amazon’s Streaming Music Service is Now Available in Canada–And It’s Free to Prime Members

Lost in the introduction of Amazon’s Alexa products to Canada was the opening of the taps to the company’s streaming music service in this country. Yeah, I missed it, too. It wasn’t until reader Mikhail pointed this out in an email last night. He was trying to bail on Amazon’s relentless marketing at him when he was lured back in with this pop-up.

Free streaming? With no ads? On any device including iPhones? Damn! That sounds like a pretty good deal–until you consider that Spotify, Apple, Google and the rest of them have libraries of over 35 million songs. Still, though. Free...

I logged into Amazon, clicked on Your Prime and got this.

Clicking through resulted in this screen.

And clicking “Listen Now” brought up this interface.

Clicking around, I found the best place to start was “Stations.”

I went with “90’s Alternative” and the first song that came up was Blind Melon’s “No Rain” followed by No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak.” This is where the limitations of the free service came clear. Although the audio was lovely and clear, there’s no ability to skip songs, not even once and you can skip songs–at least a few per hour (I haven’t tried to see what the maximum number of skips might be). The number of stations (i.e. playlists) is limited, too.

But still, free. And no ads.

Wanna give it a spin and tell me what you think?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 38011 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

4 thoughts on “In Case You Missed It, Amazon’s Streaming Music Service is Now Available in Canada–And It’s Free to Prime Members

  • “Although the audio was lovely and clear, there’s no ability to skip songs, not even once.” This is wrong. On the web and in the app you can click the ubiquitous next track >| symbol and it skips the song.

    Reply
  • You can skip songs easily!

    Reply
  • thanks for letting us know!
    I just deleted my email the other day too, Alexa isn’t exciting for me so I didn’t even look at the email.
    I guess I need yet another app for this, but it’s worth it since I’m already on Prime.

    Reply
  • I’ve listened for a bit since it was launched. Selection is surprisingly robust for a free service. Big banner for the Tragically Hip, so it’s nice to see it’s been tailored for us. Songs can be downloaded to your device for offline listening. Biggest downfall for me is I can’t listen on the Sonos (yet?).

    Reply

Let us know what you think!

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.