Amazon Prime has unveiled an exclusive set of 32 new acoustic tracks that represent a new direction for the multi-media platform, being their first move into unique music content.
The acoustics collection, entitled simply ‘Amazon Acoustics’, is largely a series of covers, featuring a number of cross-genre efforts. There are also a few freshly-penned tracks, such as Deer Tick’s ‘Grandfather Song’.
Some of the more notable efforts include a Surfer Blood cover of Outkast‘s ‘Hey Ya!’, Joshua Radin’s version of Cyndi Lauper’s ‘True Colours’ and Train performing a new unplugged version of their own track ‘Give It All’.
Musician-fronted service Tidal in particular has a heavy emphasis in exclusive content as part of its marketing strategy. Amazon’s first tentative steps into that market focus in large part on up and coming artists, but they build on previous record label experience the giant has gained in releasing albums like the soundtrack to ‘Transparent’, its Emmy-nominated, Prime-hosted series.
The tracks will be available to non-Prime members for a short period over the coming weeks, before becoming member exclusive content. At present, Amazon Prime features around a million tracks, compared to Apple’s ‘tens of millions’, and over 30 million on Spotify.
