Amazon Releases Songs of Summer—A Collection of Original Recordings Exclusively Streaming on Prime Music

Amazon today announced the release of Songs of Summer, a collection of more than 30 original recordings available exclusively for streaming on Prime Music and purchase on Amazon in the US, UK, Germany, Austria, and Japan. New renditions of popular summer songs include Brandi Carlile singing her version of The Beach Boys classic "God Only Knows," Beats Antique covering the famed song "Cruel Summer" originally from Bananarama, and Passenger putting his spin on Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay." Newly-written songs can be heard from artists like Baio of Vampire Weekend, Kate Voegele, Sublime with Rome, and more.

"Prime members have loved listening to the original music we've released, from Amazon Acoustics to Indie for the Holidays, and we're thrilled to continue to offer new, interesting music and more ways to discover great artists with today's debut of Songs of Summer," stated Steve Boom, VP of Digital Music for Amazon. "It is an eclectic mix of songs from different eras and genres, perfect for summertime listening, and we can't wait for customers and Prime members to enjoy."

"The idea for 'Summer Dream' was to write a song about summer, without directly referring to it. When I was a kid, summer seemed to last forever; it felt almost endless, and that's where the chorus came from-this feeling of summer endlessly meandering along while the verses of the song are all images associated with that feeling: stones in a creek, music in the sunshine, road trips, a lazy dream," stated Zach Gill of ALO. "Amazon gave us the creative freedom to make this song something really special for listeners-a summer dream, warm, wistful and winding with music."

"'God Only Knows' is quite possibly the best song ever written. The Beach Boys will always sound like summer to me, no matter what time of year it is. Mike McCready's guitar playing really brings out the sun for me," stated Brandi Carlile.

"Recording a summer song for Amazon gave us the opportunity to think outside the box. We have an affinity for chill 70's music and Seals & Crofts' 'Summer Breeze' came to mind-we wanted to fit what we liked about the song into a more mysterious and haunting landscape, so we replaced a lot of the soft-rock instrumentation with baritone guitars and washed out tremolo, plus we threw a trumpet in for good measure," stated Escondido. "We're grateful to Amazon for having us be a part of the Songs of Summer playlist and hope everyone enjoys listening."

"We are so excited to work with Amazon for an exclusive release of our new song 'Secrets'- we've been wanting to share it with you all," stated Rome. "We hope you enjoy!"

Throughout the summer, Amazon will also debut official and live performance videos with featured artists on Songs of Summer like Oh Pep!, Kate Voegele, Escondido, Fort Frances, and more. The full track listing for Songs of Summer can be found below. More information, including how to listen, can be found at www.amazon.com/songsofsummer.

Newly-written songs:

• ALO-"Summer Dream (We Got The Time)"
• Baio (of Vampire Weekend)-"Don't Fight Fate"
• Benji Hughes-"Summersong"
• Blitzen Trapper-"Summer Rain"
• Dirty Heads-"So Long"
• Kate Voegele-"Must Be Summertime"
• Kris Orlowski-"Indian Summer"
• Ryan Bingham-"Kindred Mountain High"
• Ryan Miller (of Guster)-"June Summer Moon"
• Stephen Kellogg-"I Will Be Crazy For You"
• Sublime with Rome-"Secrets"
• The Kin-"Weekend"

Newly-recorded songs:

• Aoife O'Donovan-"Red & White & Blue & Gold (Acoustic)"
• Beats Antique-"Cruel Summer"
• Big Jesus-"The Last Day of Summer"
• Brandi Carlile-"God Only Knows"
• Christian Lopez Band-"Dancing in the Moonlight"
• Eric Hutchinson-"Don't Worry, Be Happy"
• Escondido-"Summer Breeze"
• Fort Frances-"Summer in the City"
• Globelamp-"California Sun"
• Laura Gibson-"Sunny Afternoon"
• LOLO-"The Boys of Summer"
• Matt Nathanson-"Gold in the Summertime (Acoustic)"
• Michael Franti & Spearhead-"Summertime Is In Our Hands (Acoustic)"
• Oh Pep!-"The Swimming Song"
• Passenger-"(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay"
• Rob Grote (of The Districts)-"Nightswimming"
• Surfer Blood-"A Summer Song"
• Teddy Thompson and Kelly Jones-"Walking on Sunshine"
• The Bright Light Social Hour-"Sun King"
• The Mountain Goats-"Summer"
• The Secret Sisters-"Sealed with a Kiss"
• The Staves-"Photobooth"
• The Strumbellas-"Summer of '69"
• The Wild Reeds-"Surfer Girl"

About Amazon Music

Prime Music offers Prime members unlimited ad-free access to more than a million songs and thousands of playlists and stations as part of their Prime membership. Prime members can listen to the entire collection at no additional cost to their membership on compatible devices that support Amazon Music, including Amazon Echo, Fire devices, iPads, iPhones, Android devices, Sonos Players, the Web and more, with tracks available to download for anytime, anywhere listening. To find out more on how to listen visit www.amazon.com/howtolisten. Prime members and customers also have access to tens of millions of tracks to purchase and download in MP3 format in the Amazon Music store at www.amazon.com/digitalmusic.

More to Prime

Amazon Prime is an annual membership program for $99 a year that offers customers unlimited Free Two-Day Shipping on more than 30 million items across all categories, unlimited Free Same-Day Delivery on more than a million items in 27 metro areas, and one and two-hour delivery with Prime Now on tens of thousands of items available in more than 25 metro areas. In addition to fast, free shipping, members have access to unlimited streaming of tens of thousands of movies and TV episodes, more than one million songs and thousands of curated playlists and stations with Prime Music, early access to select Lightning Deals all year long, free secure, unlimited photo storage in Amazon Cloud Drive with Prime Photos and access to more than one million books to borrow with the Kindle Owners' Lending Library. Not a member? Start a free trial of Amazon Prime at amazon.com/prime.

About Amazon

Amazon.com opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about.

To post a comment, you must register and login.