Amazon offers free ad-supported music to US Alexa users

Amazon on Thursday announced that customers in the U.S. are now able to listen to streaming music for free via Alexa. The service is of course support by ads, and is extremely curated, but you won’t need a membership with Amazon Prime or its Music Unlimited plan—just an Alexa-enabled device.

Customers now have access to play a station based on a song, artist, era, and genre, and to hear some of Amazon Music’s top global playlists including Country Heat, Fuego Latino, and more. To listen, simply say:

– “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.

Amazon of course has multiple streaming music offerings, including an ad-free service for its Prime members with access to over 2 million songs, and its Music Unlimited, which gives you access to over 50 million songs. It’ll be interesting to see if this multi-pronged strategy leads to more Prime and/or Alexa users.

Note: Amazon just so happens to have several of its Echo and other Alexa-enabled devices on sale right now, and if you’d like, you can sign up for a free trial of Amazon Prime here.