Google Play Music’s free radio crashes Apple Music’s listening party

23 Jun 2015

Google has crashed the Apple Music party with a free, ad-supported Google Play Music service.

Just ahead of the launch of the new Apple Music service, Google has decided to crash the party with Google Play Music’s free, ad-supported radio service in the US for web, Android and iOS users.

Just as Apple dusts itself off after the Taylor Swift crisis in which the artist forced Apple to back down for trying to scrimp on paying artists during the three-month trial of Apple Music, another new challenge has arrived.

Google has launched a new, free, ad-supported version of Google Play Music that users can listen to even if they aren’t a subscriber.

The new platform is available on the web today (23 June) and will roll out this week to Android and iOS.

The service launches right now in the US and if users so wish they can sign up to subscribe to get ad-free and background features for music videos on YouTube. Subscribers can also store and play up to 50,000 songs from their collection for free.

While Apple has invested in superstar DJs like Zane Lowe to curate its new 24/7 streaming station, Google has a team of experts, including the team behind Songza, which will craft each station song by song

Users can browse the curated stations by genre, mood or activity.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com