YouTube is launching a new music-oriented streaming service called YouTube Music to rival the likes of Spotify and Apple Music.
In an official blog post the online media giant said that on May 22 the company will begin introducing its new YouTube Music streaming service.
YouTube said that the service will feature “a reimagined mobile app and brand new desktop player that are designed for music,” with “thousands of playlists, the official versions of millions of songs, albums, artist radio and more, in addition to all the music videos people expect from YouTube.”
The ad-free version of the service, called YouTube Music Premium, will cost $10 a month and will eventually replace Google Play Music. Existing Google Play Music subscribers will get a YouTube Music Premium membership as part of their subscription each month.
YouTube is also rebranding YouTubed Red, its ad-free service across all of YouTube, as YouTube Premium. The price for a Premium subscription will be $12 a month (a $2 increase compared to the current Red monthly fee) but it will also include the features that the new music streaming service will offer.
“The days of jumping back and forth between multiple music apps and YouTube are over,” YouTube said.
“YouTube Music is a new music streaming service made for music: official songs, albums, thousands of playlists and artist radio plus YouTube’s tremendous catalog of remixes, live performances, covers and music videos that you can’t find anywhere else – all simply organized and personalized. For the first time, all the ways music moves you can be found in one place.”
YouTube will begin rolling out the music streaming service in the US, Australia, New Zealand and Mexico on Tuesday. The service is slated to later be launched in Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
