Google Announces "Unlimited" Streaming Music Service

[Earnest Cavalli]

Google Announces "Unlimited" Streaming Music Service

With the introduction of Google Play Music: All Access, the tech giant hopes to tackle services like Pandora and Spotify head on.

Straight up, I like Google. As much as my anti-establishmentarian streak hates the idea of siding with any corporation, the people behind Gmail and the world's top search engine are generally pretty great. That said, I've also got a raging addiction to Pandora, so today's announcement leaves me a bit torn.

Google, having long ago decided to beat everyone at any tech-related pursuit, just announced a service dubbed "Google Play Music: All Access." Despite its horribly unwieldy title, Google Play Music: All Access is a largely familiar concept: Users will be able to create playlists, share them with friends, discover new artists and songs via automated recommendations, and even use the thing as a makeshift radio by setting it to autoplay tunes that meet whatever discretionary criteria your tastes might warrant. You want nothing but Ke$ha and Maroon 5? Alright, you're terrible, but Google Play Music: All Access can probably accomodate you.

So, what's the caveat here? Glad you/I asked. When Google Play Music: All Access debuts (conviently, today), you'll need to shell out $10 per month to use the service. Those who sign up prior to the end of June will receive a discount, lowering the monthly fee to a mere $8. Either subscription option comes with a free 30-day trial.

Though that price may seem steep to those more accustomed to listening to Pandora free of charge, keep in mind that your monetary outlay prevents the service from forcing you to listen to any ads. Further, thanks to Google's extant music store, the Google Play Music: All Access service should boast a wider variety of music than its competitors. Then again, the world of music licensing is a baffling tangle of legalese and foreboding spider webs, so only time will tell as to how wonderful Google's latest venture may be.

Source: IGN [http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/15/google-introduces-google-play-music-all-access]

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[mad825]

Funny thing is that they already have a service for that: Youtube.

 

[Thyunda]

Funny thing is that they already have a service for that: Youtube.

YouTube is great for listening to music that you already know. Before Last.fm totally cut their radio off it was great to just let it play in the background and then favourite anything that I particularly liked.

And I like like three Nickelback songs and Last just refused to play them and kept playing the shitty ones instead.

 

[mezorin]

Funny thing is that they already have a service for that: Youtube.

Something tells me there will conveniently be a crack down on youtube as a music player once this new service goes live.

Of course, none of the music you want to listen to will be availible in Canada due to international law and such, and we'll be paying ten bucks a month to get 1/4th the value of the US version. Assuming we don't get a page like Pandora that simply says the service is not availible. So us Canucks will just go back on our merry way and pirate music like always.

 

[itsthesheppy]

I like Pandora okay, but sometimes it feels like the service is a "Deep Tracks Only" sort of thing. Oh, you like [band]? You'll love [more obscure band] and their fourth-most-popular-song.

 

[Zachery Gaskins]

I'll just stick to my perpetually-owned music collection via Amazon and free-streaming-from-anywhere known as Subsonic, thanks.

 

[cidbahamut]

$10 per month is way too expensive. I'll be sticking with Pandora as they've been good to me for a long time now.

 

[Longstreet]

Can't really imagine why people would pay 10 bucks just to stream some music, that you then don;t own (if i understand this correctly)

I'll stick to youtube aswell.

 

[Nowhere Man]

Yay, another service where you don't need to buy stuff, just rent it.

Isn't it great? Now it's not just games where you have to ask nicely before being able to them. Now you can ask for music as well and you might even get it! Awesome!

Cloud is so awesome! Who needs to play, listen to music or work with Photoshop while traveling. The joy of the always-online future.

The "cloud" will soon turn us all into money wasting drones that will have to pay for everything but truly own absolutely nothing. Dont even get me STARTED on Adobe right now. I'm still flipping tables in a steaming rage because of those greedy sons of whores and their recent move to subscription only makes EA look like the Red Cross!

 

[mateushac]

Well, I guess I don't really listen to that much music to warrant a $10/month sub. I do think it's a pretty nice idea, though (I absolutely can't stand ads/ have been trying to avoid all piracy for the last few years).
What gets me worried, though is the sheer amount of subscription-based rental services I've been joining lately. With the exception of videogames, all my entertainment needs have been being (is that even a valid structure?)paid through monthly subscriptions.

 

[Scrythe]

Wait, isn't Pandora only $35 a year?

How is $10 a month better than >$3 a month for exactly the same service?

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Or you could use the original cloud music streamer: FM radio

 

[Webb Myers]

I should mention that Rhapsody is still around, costs the same, has a much bigger catalog, and lets you put whatever you want onto your mp3 player of choice.

 

[CUnk]

Yay, another service where you don't need to buy stuff, just rent it.

Isn't it great? Now it's not just games where you have to ask nicely before being able to them. Now you can ask for music as well and you might even get it! Awesome!

Cloud is so awesome! Who needs to play, listen to music or work with Photoshop while traveling. The joy of the always-online future.

Oh no! Another option for people. How annoying!

Some of us look at the thousands of dollars of dusty CDs we own yet never play and can't help but feel a twinge of buyer's remorse. $120/yr for the opportunity to listen to almost anything I want sounds pretty good to me (I've been paying for Slacker for a couple of years now). Sure, it relies heavily on being connected (although many services like Slacker allow you to cache stuff for offline listening) but I rarely find that to be an impediment. And when it is there are plenty of alternatives like terrestrial radio or my humble mp3 collection.

 

[Alek The Great]

Yay, another service where you don't need to buy stuff, just rent it.

Isn't it great? Now it's not just games where you have to ask nicely before being able to them. Now you can ask for music as well and you might even get it! Awesome!

Cloud is so awesome! Who needs to play, listen to music or work with Photoshop while traveling. The joy of the always-online future.

Oh no! Another option for people. How annoying!

Some of us look at the thousands of dollars of dusty CDs we own yet never play and can't help but feel a twinge of buyer's remorse. $120/yr for the opportunity to listen to almost anything I want sounds pretty good to me (I've been paying for Slacker for a couple of years now). Sure, it relies heavily on being connected (although many services like Slacker allow you to cache stuff for offline listening) but I rarely find that to be an impediment. And when it is there are plenty of alternatives like terrestrial radio or my humble mp3 collection.

Agreed. I recently got Xbox Music Pass cuz Spotify wasn't available in Canada and I'm loving it. I can download the songs for offline listening as well so I'll still have music if I don't have internet access and I've discovered a lot of new artists this way. The Smart DJ is also pretty decent, but I wish I'd gotten in on the Pass when it was still touted as the Zune pass cuz you'd get 10 free songs to own DRM free at the end of each month as well. Still, they've got 30 million songs and I was really surprised by some of the selection. Curious to see what the Google selection is like.

 

[FoolKiller]

I'll just continue to stream my music for free, thanks. There are lots of other options that I think are great for both random and selected songs being streamed.

I'm waiting for $1 lossless audio files to be downloaded DRM free. That is when I will pay for a song digitally.

 

[Strazdas]

and yet i still cant playback my files stored on google drive without downloading them. come on even 4shared has this.

That being said, possibly the first service like this available in my country?
then again google navigation is not available, so who knows.
(yes, google navigation tells me i am located in in-supported country and shuts down, this being with preinstaleld navigation in google-design smartphone. lolololol)

Or you could use the original cloud music streamer: FM radio

hardly. For one - you cant really do that while moving unless you got a powerful antenna, and how many of you carry antennas around?
secondly, the interference from the increased amoutn of devices is just astonoshing. my old MP3 could play FM without problem, now it hardly catches anything in same location. there are multiple spots in my neighboarhood where FM radio does not work, even if you got extended car antenna. in fact sometimes even phones looses their servers in those areas. and those areas are near supermarkets, not really a "easy to avoid" place where noone goes.

Not to mention that there is 1 okay FM radio in my whole country.