If you have a Prime account, that is.

The industry of music-streaming is getting more and more crowded as companies vie to get furthest ahead of the latest trends. Joining Spotify, Rdio, Pandora, and Beats Music, Amazon now offers a streaming music service.

The name, Prime Music, gives away the biggest caveat – you must be an Amazon Prime member to use the service. This, along with the purchase of streaming rights for HBO series and the launch of Amazon’s own original programming, is likely a big reason for the recent price hike in Prime accounts. Prime account holders can now stream movies, television, and music ad-free, with selection limited only by what Amazon does and doesn’t have rights to. Oh, plus they still have that free two-day shipping.

This gives Amazon a leg up on its competitors with the benefits, a leg up it needs due to the big price tag ($99 standard, $49 student). The company is clearly selling consolidation – why have a Netflix account and a Spotify account? Why bother with both a Hulu Plus account and a Rdio account?

Playing around with the mobile app, it seems you need to add the music – by album, by song, or by playlist – to your Prime account. You can then stream that music – along with any previously purchased music you have in Amazon’s cloud – however and whenever you please. Prime Music also offers playlists in a variety of forms, including genre, greatest hits, special occasions, and more. Examples: “Pop to Make You Feel Better,” “Kelly Clarkson’s Top Songs,” “Boss, Not Bossy,” and – ugh – “Flo Rida and More.”

Prime Music will be available on the Kindle , as well as on mobile devices with the Amazon Music app. Akin to other services, it also enables download for offline listening.

Intrigued? Check out the service for yourself.

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Tyler Hanan

Tyler raves about movies on the Let The Right Films In podcast. Listen to him make jokes over his beleaguered cohost Kayla St. Onge and their more qualified guests who deserve so much better at soundcloud.com/ltrfipod. Find him on Twitter @tylerhanan.

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