Amazon launches ad-supported music streaming service to compete with Spotify

Started as a rumor a few days ago, Amazon's new Spotify competitor has been recently made official. This would be Amazon's third music service after Music Unlimited and Prime Music, but the first to be offered for free to a specific category of consumers.

Starting today, customers in the United States who own an Alexa device will have access to Amazon Music playlists and thousands of stations completely free. You don't have to own a Prime membership subscription or a subscription to Amazon Music Unlimited because the new music streaming service is ad-supported.

All Alexa devices owners will now have access to play a station based on a song, artist, era, and even genre. On top of that, the free, ad-supported service will allow Alexa device users to listen to some of Amazon Music's top global playlists. Here is the voice commands that you'll have to use to take advantage of the free music service:

• “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.

Of course, you can get rid of the ads if you pay for a Prime membership, which will give you access to more than 2 million songs and thousands of stations and playlists across all your devices, including mobile, desktop, Alexa-enabled devices, and many more, at no additional membership.