Amazon Music expands catalog to 100M songs for members

By JONATHAN LANDRUM Jr.
AP Entertainment Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Amazon Music is gearing up for a massive content expansion: The streaming giant will offer a full catalog of music with more than 100 million songs for members.

The streaming service told The Associated Press that members will gain hundreds of millions of songs — a huge increase from 2 million — in shuffle mode without any advertisement at no additional costs. It will also include most top podcasts ad-free including Wondery’s catalog of premium shows along with series like “MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories” and Keke Palmer’s new original podcast “Baby, this is Keke Palmer.”

“We can’t wait for members to experience not only a massively expanded catalog of songs, but also the largest selection of ad-free top podcasts anywhere, at no additional cost to their membership,” said Steve Boom, vice president at Amazon Music.

Amazon Music says the decision behind the huge increase came after customers pressed for access to a full catalog of music. Now, members will be able to shuffle play any music artist, album or playlist with the option to upgrade to the Amazon Music Unlimited tier to get on-demand access — which has spatial audio along with songs in HD and Ultra HD.

Members will be able to listen to shows from major media outlets such as CNN, ESPN, NPR and The New York Times. Other top podcasts on the platform include “Dr. Death,” “SmartLess”, and “Even the Rich.”