Artists can add free personal audio messages with Amazon Music Spotlight
Amazon Music has added “Spotlight” which allows artists to create and share a personal voice message alongside a musical selection as well as via Alexa.
Unlike many Spotify For Artists features available at launch only to to top artists, anyone with 3,000 or more fans on Amazon Music can create a free Spotlight. Amazon is also promising to lower that threshold soon.
Pandora AMP (Artist Marketing Platform) has long offered a similar free audio messaging option, but Spotify and Apple Music do not.
US-based fans will find Spotlights at the top of an artist’s profile page in the Amazon Music app and via the activity feed. Fans can also ask Alexa to play Spotlights: “Alexa, play the Spotlight from Maren Morris” or “Alexa, play the Spotlight from Lil Simz”.
How to use Amazon Music Spotlight
Using the Amazon Music for Artists app, artists choose any song, album, playlist, or station to record a Spotlight for. Artists have used Spotlight to talk about the creative process or inspiration behind new songs or albums, highlight anniversaries and career milestones, promote a tours and livestreams, and more.
Artists can learn more here and watch this video:
Amazon Spotlight and Song Requests
Amazon tipped Spotlight as an Alexa feature last summer alongside the launch of another Alexa skill that allows fans to use their voice to request a song on iHeartRadio.
Bruce Houghton is Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank and serves as a Senior Advisor to Bandsintown which acquired both publications in 2019. He is the Founder and President of the Skyline Artists Agency and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.
