Taylor Swift's 'Folklore' smashes first day streaming records

Taylor Swift's Folklore is raking in its streams, breaking several first-day streaming records since its release on July 24. Folklore now sets the global record for first-day album streams on Spotify by a female artist with 80.6 million streams. On Apple Music, it's the most-streamed album in 24 hours with 35.47 streams. And it has set indie/alternative streaming records in the US and worldwide on Amazon Music, though we don't get official figures. Swift's representatives have confirmed that the album sold over 1.3 million copies worldwide within the first 24 hours of its release.

The pop star announced the surprise album on social on Thursday, July 23, which she was inspired to make and release since the coronavirus pandemic hit and affected her plans to tour her previous album, Lover. You can check out the lead single of the record in the music video above.

Source: NME

Amazon Music launches CITY X ARTIST and Alexa Loves Canada month

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To commemorate Canada Day, Amazon Canada has announced new "Alexa" skills and artist-curated playlists that reflect the talents and sounds from coast to coast.“Alexa Loves Canada" experiences are geared towards helping Canadians reflect on the past year in Canada with the assistance of some of their favourite Canadian celebrities.

Through simply saying, “Alexa, how do you feel about Canada?” or “Alexa, do you love Canada?” customers will discover brand new experiences every day in July, and will also be able to celebrate Canada with Alexa’s favourite music artists including Alanis Morissette, Bobby Bazini Bazini, Johnny Orlando, Shad, Josh Ramsay of Marianas Trench, and The Reklaws. This collaboration is an opportunity to reminisce about the things that make Canadians, Canadian with Alexa.

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Amazon Canada offers a new free tier of its music streaming service

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Amazon will allow Canadians with Alexa-enabled smart speakers to listen to music for free. These users won't even need to have Amazon Prime or Amazon Music accounts to use the feature. But, of course, this new free tier comes with a few caveats. Similar to Spotify's free tier, you can only listen to ad-supported playlists and song-based stations. You won't get to choose songs to listen to, but if you're okay with listening to Amazon-curated playlists, then this option should work out fine for you. As MobileSyrup pointed out, you can also link Spotify to the same Alexa account, so you get access to even more songs if you want.

Amazon reveals a few exclusive offers ahead of Prime Day

By now you've heard that the highly anticipated Amazon Prime Day will happen July 15 AND 16. Yes, that's two days of crazy deal shopping in July. Amazon has just released a few exclusive offers ahead of schedule, you know, just to get you ready for the main event. Timing of this sale is great also for families preparing to send their kids off to college and university this fall. Prime Day will feature more than one million deals globally across TVs, smart home, kitchen, grocery, toys, fashion, furniture, appliances, everyday essentials, and school supplies. 

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