Alexa gains yet another cool feature Amazon Music users will find very convenient
In case you haven't heard, Amazon is coming after Apple in the extremely crowded and incredibly competitive music streaming landscape. While frequent promotions and extended free trials for both the Music Unlimited and Music HD tiers of service have definitely contributed to the total number of global listeners exceeding 55 million people recently, another key growth factor is undoubtedly the way the company's music streaming platform integrates with its hugely popular virtual assistant.
In addition to doing relatively basic things like letting you skip tracks or keeping you informed of what's playing on your mobile device or smart speaker without you needing to lift a finger, Alexa can now easily find versions of songs you'd normally have to put quite a bit of effort into manually searching. We're talking about a capella, live, remastered, remix, lullaby, deluxe, acoustic, instrumental, compilation, or kids' renditions of popular tunes, all of which are just one simple voice command away for Amazon Music users in the US.
As reported by VentureBeat, all you need to do is ask Alexa to "play the Con Calma remix", for instance, or perform an even more generic voice search for "live J. Cole songs" to get what you want on Echo devices, as well as iPhones or Android handsets using the respective versions of the Amazon Music mobile app.
What's perhaps even cooler and more convenient is that you can seamlessly switch from a studio recording of a song to a live performance or alternative recording of any sort while streaming the original track by asking Alexa to play a different version of "this." That's right, you don't even have to name the melody, although Amazon's voice assistant can obviously tell you that as well upon request or before each song is streamed if you enable the Song ID feature.
This 2019-released functionality is actually also getting a small but notable improvement today, as Amazon promises Alexa will start announcing music in a "more natural", warmer, and friendlier voice stateside. Elsewhere, Amazon Music supports a grand total of over 60 languages for regional requests now, adding native integration with Romanian, Icelandic, Maori, Persian, Nigerian, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese, among others.
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