Amazon streaming music tipped for this week ahead of press event

Next week we'll be headed to an Amazon press event, but today it's been tipped that the company may reveal a streaming music program as early as Friday. Why would Amazon reveal a streaming music service before their major event next week, you might ask? To push that service to whatever device they plan on revealing next week, of course.

This music service has been tipped by The New York Times to Ben Sisaro, who suggests that this Amazon streaming service will be pushed to Amazon Prime members first. It's also suggested that this music service will be the only place to work with Amazon's streaming music service, and makes no mention of the possibility of a phone being shown off next week.

Amazon is said this week to be launching this streaming music service with far fewer songs than they've got in their total Amazon music catalog. This streaming service will need to have music labels sign completely separate contracts from their music store service, and some larger labels have not yet been signed as such. Universal is one of the largest labels to not have signed with Amazon yet, it's said, while Sony and Warner Music are already onboard.

Amazon Prime's push of streaming music will be an interesting addition to the already-strong selection of streaming services in Spotify, Beats Music, Rhapsody, and iTunes Radio, but shouldn't end up competing directly if tied explicitly to the Prime service.

Stick with us as we head to the Amazon event next week on June 18th, 2014. Until then, stick around the Amazon tag portal to keep up on all rumors and – possibly – the big music announcement.