Amazon Music Unlimited vs. Spotify

[sonnymax]

Hey all. I decided to check out amazon's music unlimited streaming service recently. As an amazon prime member, it's only $79 a year. However, I've discovered that the plan is not truly "unlimited". Yes, you can stream an album, but sometimes not all of the tracks are available. For instance, I'm listening to "No Amps Allowed", a great recording by guitarist Howard Alden. There's 15 tracks on the album, but six of them aren't available for streaming, even with the unlimited plan. I don't want to pay for a streaming service that prohibits you from listening to almost half an album. My question is this: does Spotify's paid plan allow you to stream all the content in it's vast library? When listening to an album, are all the tracks available to stream, or are some tracks missing? Thanks in advance for all replies (even silly ones ).

[Chuck Nessa]

Thank god no one has to pay real money to the creators.

[David Ayers]

Spotify uses the same principles. Some copyright owners withhold tracks to encourage download sales, I assume. Which tracks are withheld in some cases seems to vary, so may be decided by a matrix. There can also be reasons of copyright for selective withholdings. Most labels including the majors do this infrequently if at all. 

 

 

Why not take a free look at spotters to see how it compares?

[GA Russell]

Doesn't Spotify still require a user (free or paid) to allow them to search his hard drive?

[Kevin Bresnahan]

17 hours ago, sonnymax said:

Hey all. I decided to check out amazon's music unlimited streaming service recently. As an amazon prime member, it's only $79 a year. However, I've discovered that the plan is not truly "unlimited". Yes, you can stream an album, but sometimes not all of the tracks are available. For instance, I'm listening to "No Amps Allowed", a great recording by guitarist Howard Alden. There's 15 tracks on the album, but six of them aren't available for streaming, even with the unlimited plan. I don't want to pay for a streaming service that prohibits you from listening to almost half an album. My question is this: does Spotify's paid plan allow you to stream all the content in it's vast library? When listening to an album, are all the tracks available to stream, or are some tracks missing? Thanks in advance for all replies (even silly ones ).

What's even weirder is that if I follow your link to "No Amps Allowed", I see all 15 tracks listed and when I hover over any of these tracks, I get a pop-up message that says, "Go Unlimited to listen to "Track Name". All 15 tracks have this same pop-up message. If I were to buy Amazon Unlimited specifically to hear all of these tracks, I'd be pretty upset at them for lying like that.

[sonnymax]

Grumpy cat agrees!

[Coda]

I have Amazon unlimited stream and see all 15 of the tracks you mention.     My beef with Amazon's unlimited is that jazz searches often bring up no records.  

[sonnymax]

4 hours ago, Coda said:

I have Amazon unlimited stream and see all 15 of the tracks you mention.     My beef with Amazon's unlimited is that jazz searches often bring up no records.  

Yes, you can see them all, but can you stream them all? Specifically tracks 4, 7, 9, 10 & 13?

[Coda]

I just tried and you're correct.  As soon as I hit play those tracks disappeared and would not stream.

[BFrank]

I like Amazon. Easy to use and has MORE than enough music to keep me coming back. A few missing albums or tracks is no big deal for me in this situation.

[mr jazz]

I have unlimited and it is annoying when you can't stream all tracks. That said, I've been able to listen to several recordings and decide whether I want to purchase so it's already saving me money and making my spouse happy.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

On 2/5/2018 at 1:03 AM, BFrank said:

I like Amazon. Easy to use and has MORE than enough music to keep me coming back. A few missing albums or tracks is no big deal for me in this situation.

A few missing albums or tracks might be "no big deal", but it kinda is when they advertise that they *will* be available if you pay.

[BFrank]

9 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

A few missing albums or tracks might be "no big deal", but it kinda is when they advertise that they *will* be available if you pay.

I haven't seen that, but I do pay for "Amazon Music Unlimited."