Amazon’s got friends in low places, apparently.
The company’s new service, Amazon Music Unlimited, added several Garth Brooks albums to its catalog, marking the first time the country star has offered his music on a streaming platform.
Country fans won’t get access to Brooks’s entire library but two greatest hits compilations and a single from his upcoming album “Gunslinger” are available on Amazon Music Unlimited now. More music from Brooks will be added later this year, Amazon says.
The company is also the only digital service selling Brooks’s music, according to Recode.
Hip-hop acts, like Beyoncé, Drank, Frank Ocean, and other stars have signed similar exclusive deals with Tidal and Apple Music. Brooks isn’t in his peak, the same way those artists are, but he does have a massive following.
The deal might also provide a glimpse into the music market Amazon is trying to corner. Rather than try to syphon subscribers from Spotify and Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited may be targetted at the older Prime subscriber who hasn’t yet chosen a paid monthly streaming service.
Amazon Music Unlimited’s pricing model supports this theory. To listen to the service across multiple devices it’s $7.99 a month for Prime members and $9.99 — the same cost as Spotify and Apple Music — for everyone else. There’s also an option to get Amazon Music Unlimited for $3.99 per month, but its restricted to one Echo device.
Of course, Amazon wouldn’t pass on the opportunity to exclusively stream Beyoncé’s next album or lure Spotify subscribers to the service but targeting users who haven’t committed to a music subscription might be a more realistic goal.
Amazon launched Music Unlimited, with a catalog of tens of millions of songs, integration with the digital assistant Alexa, and other high-tech features, last week.
