YouTube launches new music streaming service

New music streaming service YouTube Music starts rolling out in the United States, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand this week with Ireland and the United Kingdom to follow soon. The new mobile app and desktop player from YouTube will compete with Spotify and iTunes to offer official songs, albums, playlists and artist radio stations.

What will set it apart from the competition, says product manager, Elias Roman, is YouTube's "tremendous catalogue of remixes, live performances, covers and music videos that you can't find anywhere else".

Big advantage

Another big advantage is the power of Google Search: you can type in a description eg "that hipster song with whistling" or some lyrics and your desired song is likely to pop up.

The ad-supported version of YouTube Music will be free and for $9.99 per month the premium version will offer background listening (finally!), downloads and no ads. Those currently subscribing to Google Play Music will automatically have access to the service as it becomes available.

[ https://youtube.googleblog.com/2018/05/youtube-music-new-music-streaming.html ]