Friday was a good day for music aficionados, as Amazon (AMZN -0.16%) announced that its Amazon Music service is part of an effort to remaster "thousands" of songs for the Ultra High-Definition audio format.
The company announced today that it is collaborating in the effort with two of the big-three music labels, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group.
The initiative will cover the work of a great many familiar artists from those labels, including but by no means limited to Elton John, The Eagles, Nirvana, Linkin Park, and Lady Gaga. All of the enhanced music will be available for listening on the giant retailer's dedicated Amazon Music HD streaming platform and in its store.
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Amazon Music HD is a subscription service that costs $14.99 per month for an individual subscription, or $12.99 for members of the company's Amazon Prime package of perks. At the moment, according to its parent, Amazon Music HD has a library of around 5 million songs. It claims its Ultra HD music collection is the largest in the world.
The company is clearly viewing the remastering project as a work in progress. "We'll continue to work with more labels to upgrade the digital quality of even more audio recordings," according to Steve Boom, vice president for Amazon Music. No mention was made of the third member of the big-three record labels, Sony's Sony Music Group.
This news wasn't necessary a pretty song to the ears of Amazon investors, however. On Friday, they bid the company's stock down by almost 3%, a deeper fall than that suffered by the S&P 500 index on the day.
