Amazon Streaming Service Prime Music Launches: Full of Playlists, Lacks Universal Music Group Artists

Well, it seems as though all of those Internet rumors were true (for once). After weeks of speculation, today (June 12) Amazon launched its own music streaming service, Prime Music, as a part of its Amazon Prime package.

Looking to compete with the likes of Spotify, Pandora and iTunes, Prime Music is now available to Amazon Prime users alongside its other perks, including free TV and movie streaming and free two-day shipping on Amazon product orders.

According to Amazon, the Prime Music service will begin with over a million songs in its category "from top artists like Daft Punk, P!nk, Bruno Mars, Blake Shelton" and more. Much like Amazon's TV and film streaming services, Prime Music will feature ad-free playback.

In addition to millions of songs, Prime Music comes built in with hundreds of pre-made playlists (a la iTunes Radio), including "Indie Feel Good Music," "50 Great '90s Songs" and even "Cooking with Jazz."

Despite its cool playlists and catalogues from the likes of The Lumineers, Prime Music is a limited offering, musically. According to The New York Times, new releases will not be included in Prime Music for at least six months and Universal Music Group and Amazon failed to reach a deal for that label's music, which includes acts such as Beck, Demi Lovato, Kanye West and Rihanna.

Regardless, Amazon can boast a big user base. The company is estimated to have roughly 20 million Prime users.

Prime Music will not be available to users who don't have normal Amazon Prime accounts, and it comes at quite the price tag. Though the cost of Prime began at just $50 per year, the cost has now soared to $99, so Amazon has to increase its perks in order to keep its customers interested (and paying).

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