YouTube Launches Music Streaming Service

YouTube and Google have launched their long-rumored music streaming service, available beginning today (Nov. 12).

The service offers a new home focused solely on music on YouTube’s app for Android, iOS and on YouTube.com. On the YouTube website, the new music-focused space appears essentially as an additional tab. The new music home includes recommended playlists, as well as YouTube Mixes, and a collection of videos a user has recently viewed.

A post on YouTube’s official blog promises that viewers will soon be able to see an artist’s discography on YouTube, and play a full album with both the artist’s official music videos, as well as songs from YouTube’s music partners.

YouTube Music Key, the paid tier of the new roll-out, will launch with invite-only beta testing on Monday (Nov. 17) in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, Finland, and Portugal. YouTube Music Key enables offline and ad-free listening, and the monthly subscription service will begin at the promotional price of $7.99/month (discounted from $9.99/month). It will include a subscription to Google Play Music (with 30+ million songs and curated playlists).

Music Key subscribers can access video-free songs in addition to YouTube’s existing collection of songs with music videos. Also, Music Key users can choose videos, songs and playlists for offline listening.