We’ve been closely watching Discord evolve over the past few years: not just as a platform for artists to bring their superfan communities together, but as a platform for people to listen to music together.
Some of their early practices violated the policies of YouTube, which was used as a source for the music. Two of the most popular Discord music bots, Groovy and Rythm, were shut down in 2021 following cease-and-desist orders from Alphabet’s video service.
Now, one of the world’s largest music streaming services is expanding to Discord. Amazon Music has launched an “Amazon Music Listening Party” activity on Discord – activities that are the successors to the bots on the latter platform: essentially apps within the app that users can use.
Amazon Music lets users listen to music and podcasts together in Discord, syncing music libraries from both services so their favorites are easily accessible. Groups of friends can share a single queue to create a playlist they can listen to while chatting.
The obvious limitation is that users must be Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers, and the company is offering new users a three-month trial subscription as part of Discord activity launches to reduce friction between friend groups who may be using competing streaming services.
There’s clearly an opportunity here: Discord, after all, has more than 200 million monthly active users. Superfan startup Levellr recently estimated that users who linked it to their Spotify profiles could stream up to 131 billion tracks a year while online in Discord, underscoring the potential scale.
That’s why even more direct integrations with streaming services like Amazon Music are attractive. However, it will face competition from one of those early Discord music brands: Rythm, which returned in June this year with licensing deals and a premium subscription for $4.99 per month.
While Rythm may be the David among global DSP Goliaths, it is truly native to Discord and was built from the ground up for the platform and for social listening.
The competition promises to be exciting – and if other global streaming services set their sights on Discord as their next target, Rythm could of course be an obvious takeover target for them.
