YouTube Music streaming service unveiled – ad-free Spotify rival will arrive in the UK this year
AFTER months of leaks, YouTube has finally taken the wraps off its Spotify rival.
Fittingly dubbed , the streaming service will boast its very own smartphone and desktop apps and offer ad-free tunes and downloads like its competitors.
It will launch in the US for $9.99 next Tuesday, replacing the existing Google Play Music platform, and arrive in the UK and Europe later this year.
An ad-supported free version will land at the same time.
YouTube Music will also be available to YouTube Red customers as part of their existing subscription, which is being bumped up from $10 to $12 to make room for the new service.
In case you missed it, YouTube Red is an ad-free version of Google's popular video site that's stocked with original shows. The platform is currently unavailable in the UK.
Only now it's being re-branded as YouTube Premium.
Got it? Right, let's get back to the tunes then.
On the surface, YouTube Music does have some advantages to Spotify and Apple Music.
One of the benefits is access to YouTube's bulging library of music videos.
The company is also promising remixes, covers, and "deep cuts" that you can't find anywhere else.
Then there's YouTube's advanced algorithms, which will personalise the listening experience to your tastes and even your location.
We'll let the big G break it down for you: "YouTube Music’s personalized home screen dynamically adapts to provide recommendations based on people’s listening history, where they are and what they’re doing," explains the company.
"At the airport? We’ll recommend something relaxing before the flight. Entering the gym? We’ll suggest some beats to get the heart-rate going."
You'll also be able to find that song you can't remember the name of by typing in its lyrics or a description in the app's search bar.
For example, if you input "I make money moves", Google's system will play Cardi B's hit single Kodak Black.
Meanwhile, trying "that hipster song with the whistling" will bring up Young Folks by Peter Bjorn and John.
Of course, YouTube's rivals boast algorithms too, but they're mainly confined to curating playlists and serving up recommendations (all of which YouTube Music will also do).
The YouTube Music reveal comes on the heels of two major milestones for its adversaries.
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Earlier this week, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that Apple Music now has 50 million users, taking into account both paying subscribers and freeloaders.
That's still less than Spotify, which has 75 million paying members and a whopping 170 million free listeners.
Speaking of Spotify, the company recently filed to go public, as part of an unorthodox initial public offering (valuing the firm at $26.6billion) that will see it sell shares directly to the public without a middleman.
Although YouTube Red's estimated 1.5million subscribers will give YouTube Music a boost, the new service will clearly have some catching up to do.
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