Amazon's high-fidelity streaming service, Amazon Music HD, is now available to Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers at no extra cost, the company tells Billboard. Amazon Music HD previously cost $14.99 a month ($12.99 for Prime members) while Amazon Music Unlimited, its most popular service option, is $9.99 a month ($7.99 for Prime members).
The move is a first in the music industry, where high-fidelity streaming options routinely cost $19.99 a month before Amazon Music HD arrived in September 2019, forcing competitors like Deezer and Qobuz to lower the price of their high-fidelity plans to $14.99. (Tidal still selling its high-fidelity streaming tier for $19.99 a month). Now Amazon is leading the way once again, effectively cutting the price of high-fidelity music in half within two years.
“It's something we've all we've been wanting to do for a long time,” says Amazon Music vp Steve Boom. “When we launched, we already broke the mold by taking a service that had been $19.99 -- and really just for the audiophile at that price point -- and brought it down to something that was much more mass-market at $14.99.”
Amazon’s success with its HD service, which has grown 100% year-over-year, has pushed Spotify to announce a Hi-Fi tier as well, with rumors of an Apple Music Hi-Fi plan possibly also priced at $9.99 a month.
For years, the music industry was focused on using high-fidelity audio streaming as a means to raise the average revenue per user with higher-priced subscriptions. That would mean bigger payouts for rights holders and the streaming services. But with Amazon, Spotify, and Apple all getting in on the high-fidelity push, the labels have become more amenable to lowering the price of high-fidelity tiers in the hopes of increasing the overall number of subscribers across the industry.
“The other services are coming around to the fact that this is really important.” Boom says. “And that momentum in the marketplace just changed the nature of the conversations about how this content should be made accessible to everybody and how it should be licensed.”
Boom continues, “The labels have been extremely supportive of us in our efforts to trailblaze with HD audio. This is going to create more growth in the marketplace. And we're putting the focus on the quality of the sound as opposed to just the revenue.”
Amazon Music HD has more than 70 million lossless CD-quality songs in HD (16-bit / 44.1 kHz) and over 7 million “Ultra HD” songs (24-bit / 48kHz, 96 kHz, 192 kHz), which are effectively studio masters. Subscribers to Amazon Music Unlimited in the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain will be able to upgrade to Amazon Music HD on both individual and family plans for free (student plans are not included and will not have HD music available). Current Amazon Music HD subscribers will now be charged $5 less a month on their future billing cycles.
Just days after landing her fourth No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Drop Dead,” Olivia Rodrigo is now getting major recognition from Niall Horan.
In a recent conversation with Rolling Stone published April 30, the former One Direction member shared insight into how he approaches songwriting, highlighting the comeback of bridges in pop and pointing to Rodrigo as a key influence behind it.
“It’s great to hear [bridges]. I feel like Olivia Rodrigo has been a big influence on that for pop writers,” the Irish artist said, before singing part of the “Drivers License” bridge. “What I like about Olivia’s music is [that] you feel like you’re getting one song and then you get a completely different song. It completely flips on its head musically, goes somewhere different, brings you to a bridge, brings you to some weird musical breakdown thing. Whatever [she] and Dan Nigro are up to is a good little team they’ve got going there. It’s definitely influencing people, including myself.”
Horan also spoke at length about his upcoming project Dinner Party, set to arrive June 5 through Capitol Records. He has already released two tracks from the record, including the title cut and “Little More Time,” both produced alongside Afterhrs, John Ryan and Julian Bunetta. The album rollout will be paired with an extensive 22-date tour across Europe, Ireland and the U.K. The Irish singer’s new release follows 2023’s The Show, which debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200. During the interview, Horan also mentioned that his next era leans more into rock elements, something he connects back to his long-standing love for bands like Blink-182.
“That drum sound is something that we were trying to chase, and that comes from that late-’90s, early-2000s punk-rock era,” he said. “Rock’s been a big influence in my life since I was a child. I write pop songs, but dressing them up in a different way sometimes is quite cool. And now, the way my career is going, I’m completely thinking about live shows all the time. I learned so much from being on the road and being out there every night. There’s only so much sitting on Spotify you can do and reading comments before you actually get an idea of what people actually think. You can see it in the room. The rockier stuff really goes off at the shows.”
The “Slow Hands” hitmaker also has two U.S. stadium dates lined up for this year. Joining longtime friend and Grammy-nominated country artist Thomas Rhett, Horan is set to perform at GEODIS Park in Nashville on July 9 and Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey, Pennsylvania on July 19, with Live Nation handling promotion for both shows. Kashus Culpepper and Emily Ann Roberts will open the concerts. With such a packed touring schedule, all four remaining members of One Direction are expected to be on the road with new music this year. When asked about attending his former bandmates’ shows, Horan gave praise to Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson.
“I went to Harry’s show a couple of years ago, and that was just wild. Madness going on there,” he said. “It reminded me of the 1D stadium shows where it was just seas of people jumping up and down. Watching the things going on on the floor, all the fans dancing around, I love that. You feel a sense of pride watching the boys doing what they love to do, and the communities that they’re able to create. I’m going to try and get to a Louis show of some capacity in the next few weeks.”
Horan is now the fourth One Direction member to drop a new album this year. Tomlinson released How Did I Get Here? in January, Styles hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally in March, and ZAYN followed with Konnakol earlier this month on April 17.
