Google Music launched

Thu 17th Nov, 2011 in International News

Google Music – Google’s late-to-the-party attempt to take on the iTunes and Amazon stores – has finally been launched and although it does bring a new competitor to the music download market there aren’t many innovations.

The service is only available in America (for now) and has launched with 1,000 labels including Sony, Universal and EMI signed up. Warner is the significant hold out, which means that Green Day, Van Halen and Diddy fans miss out.

At the moment there are 8 million tracks available as 320kbps MP3s on Google Music they’re priced between 99 cents and $1.29. You can listen to 90 second previews of all the songs (but, of course, only if you’re in America).

The service will allow you to upload music to the cloud for free and you’ll then be able to listen to the tracks to via the cloud or “pin” them for offline listening. You’ll also be able to share entire songs — not just 90 second previews — for free with friends through Google+.

Artists Hub pages will allow musicians to make customized pages where they can upload and sell their music through Google for a one-time $25 “artist registration fee.” The artists will control the pricing for each song in a 70 / 30 split with Google taking the smaller share. Google is also working with YouTube to allow artists to sell songs directly from their YouTube channels.

Other features include:
Antenna – emerging artists curated by the “music geeks” at Google Music
Magnifier – exclusive content including video interviews and concerts
And a daily free download – first up is David Bowie’s Sound and Vision.