How to listen to free music with Alexa without a subscription

The smart devices of Amazon’s Echo family are a series of interesting devices that have managed to find a place in the rooms of many Italians. Thanks to advertising, the voice assistant Alexa has managed to spread, but after the initial euphoria the question arises, what am I doing with my Echo? Here today we will partially answer this question, deepening how to listen to free music with Alexa, both through the app and through Amazon Echo devices.

Some of you may have already noticed that Alexa only supports paid premium versions of popular music services like Spotify and Apple Music. But there are other methods to listen to our favorite music for free also through Echo devices, in this article we will try to dissect them all.

Listen to music on Alexa without a subscription

From 3 April 2020 it is now possible to access Amazon Music even if you don’t have an Amazon Prime subscription. Before this date the service was included only for those who had subscribed to Amazon Prime, while now the service included with the latter is called Amazon Music Prime.

The differences between the 4 Amazon Music services They are the following:

• Amazon Music Free will allow you to listen to music on alexa without a subscription, as the platform is supported by listening to advertisements, as is also the case for the free version of Spotify. This subscription allows you to only listen to music in the Playlist quality specially created for this service, so you will not be able to choose the song yourself.
• Amazon Music Prime it is included with the Amazon Prime subscription and allows you to listen to over 2 million songs and thousands of playlists.
• Amazon Music Unlimited allows you to listen to over 60 million songs and thousands of playlists. Its cost is € 9.99 per month, with often offers on the first months at a much lower cost.
• Amazon Music HD has included listening to 60 million songs in High Definition and 2 million songs in Ultra HD (UHD), over a thousand songs in 3D on Amazon Echo Studio and thousands of playlists. Its cost is € 14.99 per month, with often offers on the first months at a much lower cost.

All services being always from Amazon, they are perfectly integrated with Alexa and can be managed directly with voice. If you have subscribed to Amazon Prime, on your Amazon account associated with Alexa, Amazon Music Prime will be immediately available without any other configuration.

If voice commands don’t work, just make sure Amazon Music is the default music service. It takes a few steps, the procedure is basically the same from the Alexa app or from the website, so:

• open the Alexa app, press the menu button at the top left (characterized by three parallel horizontal segments);
• then tap on the item “settings“, Then press on the item”Music“And then on”Default services “;
• on the screen make sure that the selected service is Amazon Music.

The most common voice commands to manage music are:

• “Alexa play Music“- a playlist based on the last songs listened to will be played;
• “Alexa play [artista]“- a list of songs by the artist in question will be played;
• “Alexa play [brano]“- the chosen piece will be performed;
• “Alexa skips to the next song“- allows you to go to the next song.
• “Alexa pause”- pauses playback, which can then be resumed at a later time.

As you can see, they are all very intuitive commands. If you request to play a song or artist not included in Amazon Music’s 2 million songs, Alexa will invite you to subscribe to Amazon Music Unlimited or Amazon Music HD. Don’t worry, it won’t be activated automatically without your explicit confirmation.

Listen to music through Deezer

If you take advantage of this convenient music service even without a premium account, I have good news for you: the service through a special Skill works perfectly through Alexa, even if it is very limited. But it’s one of only two ways to get completely free music streaming services on your Echo.

The Skill can be installed simply from the Alexa app for Android and iOS, just open it then:

• press the menu key at the bottom right (characterized by three parallel horizontal segments);
• tap on the item “Skills and games“, Then press the button in the shape of a magnifying glass at the top right;
• by clicking on the magnifying glass at the top right, write in the appropriate box that appears “Deezer“Select the first item, and then press the”Enable to use“;
• a window will open in which you will have to enter your service credentials and log in.

At this point you have finished the setup and can enjoy your music. The procedure is basically the same if you are using the Alexa web interface.

The Skill allows you to listen to music from your “Flow“, The automatic playlist that the service creates based on the songs we have included in the favorites. To do this, you need to wake Alexa and then use the command “Run my Flow on Deezer“;

Also, it allows you to start Flow based on a specific artist just use the command “Run on deezer [nome artista]“.

However, there are some important limitations:

• you cannot listen to your own playlists;
• if you search for a specific artist, a playlist inspired by that artist will start (Flow);
• it is not possible to start a single song.

Listen to the radio via Alexa

We talked about two services for streaming music, but there are also radio stations that can be listened to online.

Alexa already has a convenient service, already prepared for listening to online streaming radio and is based on the excellent TuneIn radio. To listen to a station chosen according to our tastes automatically by Alexa just say:

• ” Alexa, play me a radio station“

To choose a particular radio station just use the command:

• “Alexa, play me radio station [nome della stazione radio di vostro gusto]“

If you want to know a list of available online radio stations, you can take advantage of the Alexa app by following these steps:

• open it and go to the item “Entertainment “;
• go down to “Local Radio TuneIn“And press on”Browse“;
• in the screen you can find the most followed local radios, and the most successful general ones, also at the top you can find the search function to find a radio of your interest.

Some radios have their own dedicated Skill, you can install it directly by going to the skill menu, following the procedure explained in the paragraph dedicated to Deezer.

Use your Echo as a bluetooth speaker

Not many people know that your Echo device can also act as a convenient Bluetooth speaker and therefore can play music and audio that you send to it from your phone or tablet.

To start the playback you must first perform the pairing, here is the quick procedure:

• activate bluetooth in the terminal from which you intend to transmit and make sure it is set to discoverable;
• open the Alexa app, press the “Devices” bottom right;
• select the item “Echo e Alexa”And then the Echo device whose Bluetooth you want to turn on;
• then press on the item “Bluetooth devices”And then on the button“ Pair a new device ”.
• the device to be paired will appear and you can select it.

At this point the procedure will be finished and you will be able to play your audio contents on the speaker.

Our insight into free music with Alexa has come to a close. We wish you a lot of fun with your favorite music.