Amazon Music is letting artists deliver live concerts and other live-streaming sessions from Twitch directly in the Amazon Music mobile app — giving them a new way to reach fans during the COVID pandemic, according to the internet giant.
More than 1,000 artists have already connected their Amazon Music accounts to Twitch, the company said. There aren’t direct monetization features through the Twitch live-streams available on Amazon Music app for iOS and Android, but eligible artists can set up subscriptions on Amazon-owned Twitch to earn money (as well as sell merchandise and participate in ad-revenue sharing).
According to Amazon, the integration of Twitch with Amazon Music mobile will let artists reach “stadium-size audiences” at a time when in-person events are limited because of the coronavirus crisis. The company says Amazon Music has more than 55 million customers worldwide.
“We’re providing artists with more tools to instantly engage with fans, and this new feature couldn’t arrive at a more crucial time in the industry,” said Amazon Music director Ryan Redington. “Together with Twitch, we’re making it possible for artists across all genres, at all moments of their careers, to harness the social power of live streaming to create more engagement with their recorded catalog.”
The new feature comes as some in the music biz are unhappy with Twitch’s approach to streaming music on its platform. The nonprofit Artist Rights Alliance, Twitch is not properly licensing music from artists while the game-centric platform also has shown “unwillingness to do anything beyond the most minimal and inadequate effort to process takedown requests” under the U.S.’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
In the Amazon Music app, users can get notifications from artists they follow when they the musicians go live on Twitch. In addition, Amazon Music has launched a new “Live” page.
Events that use the new Amazon Music/Twitch streaming feature are scheduled to include:
- The Killers’ Brandon Flowers and Ronnie Vannucci Jr., who will join Amazon Music Sept. 4 at 1 p.m. ET to answer fan questions about their latest album, “Imploding the Mirage.”
- Soul singer and storyteller Nicole Atkins will host a variety series Wednesdays at 7 p.m. ET with performances and interviews with friends and artists including Elle King, Cut Worms and Whitney.
- Amazon Music will stream the Heavy Music Awards 2020 live from the HMA’s London offices Sept. 3 at 8:30 p.m. BST/3:30 p.m. ET and feature performances from The Hunna, Holding Absence, Heart Of A Coward, Wargasm,Coldbones and HAWXX.
- Capital One City Parks Foundation’s SummerStage Anywhere will stream exclusive digital performances (Tuesdays at 7 p.m. ET) spanning Latin, world, hip-hop, jazz and more for its weekly concert series.
Artists can visit artists.amazonmusic.com/live for more information about the feature, including step-by-step instructions for connecting their Twitch channel to the Amazon Music app.
This year, Twitch and Amazon Music have worked with artists to support and produce livestreams to raise millions of dollars for COVID-19 relief efforts including Twitch StreamAid and Willie Nelson’s Luck Reunion.
Amazon Music gives Prime members access to ad-free listening of 2 million songs at no additional cost to their membership. The premium Amazon Music Unlimited tier provides access to more than 60 million songs and the latest new releases.