How to Set up Amazon Music Using Alexa
Alexa has long been able to respond to queries about specific music genres, moods, and playlists. Now it can also help you compose and personalize the specified playlists and remember your preferences for the future.
Amazon is launching new features for Amazon Music users that enable more natural sharing of data with Alexa. Whereas previously you were limited to basic commands (“Alexa, play the holiday music”), you can now use Alexa to narrow your choices.
For example, if you say, “Alexa, help me find a holiday playlist,” she might say , “We’re going to swing around the Christmas tree. Any special features? Soft? Or maybe optimistic? “
From there, Alexa can respond in your natural language. So you can say “Soft” and she will pick a playlist and ask you something like, “Will this work?” If you refuse, she will try again.
For now, users should start these conversations with “Alex, help me find …”, but Amazon expects to add “Alex, recommend …” and “Alex, what should I play?” to her repertoire.
Once you hit the playlist, you can also select songs you like or dislike. Phrases like “Alexa, I like this song” and “Alexa, I don’t like this” act like Pandora’s thumb up / down. Alexa will remember previously liked, frequently listened to and favorite songs and extract from them when you say: “Alexa, turn on the music that I like”.
These new features only work with Amazon Music – Prime Music and Amazon Music Unlimited – so if you prefer Spotify or another subscription music service, you’ll have to stick with more targeted commands. You must be a US customer on an Echo device or Amazon Music app.
When it comes to music, Alexa has another almost human quality: she can put on a “mom” and push away your requests. For example, if you ask her to start an NSFW playlist, she might say, “This playlist might contain explicit text. Prefer not to hear explicit texts? “To which you can answer:” Alexa, block the text of explicit content. ” Or not.