Google Play Music

With its All Access subcription service, the updated Google Play Music has come of age. The inclusion of this subscription service trumps Apple's iTunes, and Google delivers an excellent, well-designed system, with a large catalog of any music most people are likely to crave, and a beautiful, full-function interface similar to Rdio's. Equalling iTunes Match is Google Play's scan and match feature, which saves you from having to upload all your music files to your Google digital locker. Unless you're tied to your iPhone or iPad, Google Play Music, and in particular, its new All Access option, at $9.99 a month, is worth a very close look. But Play Music still falls slightly short of the best streaming services in some ways, and if you use Apple's mobile devices, you're out of luck.

Google Play Music All Access
We've complained about Apple's not offering and all-you-can-eat music subscription in the iTunes Music Store for years, so maybe Google's move here will finally force Apple to reconsider its policy on music subscription. Facebook users already have easy access to Spotify app, which over 10 million users have used. Another strong contender and Editors' Choice is Slacker Radio ($9.99 a month), which offers fine-tuning of your custom internet radio stream. Google's All Access costs the same $9.99 a month as Spotify, but only $7.99 if you sign up before June 30. Google, however, surprisingly doesn't offer a free ad-supported account type. If you want an excellent free music player, you're well served by Songza, our Editors' Choice for free streaming music services. The also excellent Rdio also costs $9.99 a month for full access.

As mentioned, Apple has no equivalent to All Access, but you do get some pretty great stuff with the iTunes ecosystem that you don't get with Google Play Music?AirPlay, podcast playing, access to public internet radio stations, and the ability to play easily to a home theater system through Apple TV. This last is important to me, since when I'm serious about listening to something, I want to be able to do so on my hi-fi system. Microsoft offers subscription with its Xbox Music Pass, also $9.99 a month, but it only works Windows 8, Windows Phones, and Xboxes. The Xbox part, however, solves the problem of getting your music to you home theater sound system, to which Google Play Music has no simple answer.

Setting up Google Play Music All Access couldn't be easier. It's far less of a process than you have to go through to get up and running with Spotify, which you can't even use unless you specify some contacts whose music choices you want to follow. This brings up the point of social integration: if you really need the input of your friends' music ideas, you're better off with Spotify or Rdio, but if you just want to discover on your own All Access serves you well. All Access does of course require your entering a payment method, and if you have a Google Wallet account, you'll simply have to okay the transaction.

The service worked fine in all browsers?even Internet Explorer 10! Remember, competitor iTunes doesn't run in a web browser at all, but it does have the advantage of an unobtrusive mini player window.

Sound quality was excellent. The service detects your internet connection speed and serves up an appropriate bitrate. Fast connections get a very fine 320Kbps bitrate. While listening, you can click the full-screen icon to show the album art moving around the browser window.

Creating a Station
Once you're in your Google Play Music All Access account, you just search for a musician, and a grid of tiles with artist images shows up. Click on one, and you've got a playlist of related tunage. Google only claims "millions" of songs in its catalog, where competitors like Spotify boast 15 million, so you may not find what you want. I didn't have much problem with the selection.

I first tested with Ulrich Schnauss, an otherworldly German electronica artist, and then with a lesser known artist, Leggo Beast, and neither tripped up the service. Switching musical gears drastically, the service did find Stile Antico, a top-notch vocal early music ensemble, but the group's latest album wasn't available?but it wasn't on Spotify, either, but Rdio did! It did find an impressive 88 albums sung by Kings College Choir.

I like how the All Access radio's music affinity engine finds not just a very limited genre of nearly identical songs with the same "musical DNA," the way Pandora does. Instead, it pushes the edges of the style of the musicians you select. This lets you create playlists including everything you like, not just a narrow band of musical style. I also found Google Play Music's interface easier on the eyes than the busy iTunes-like Spotify, though Rdio's slick web interface is its equal.

But there was one major problem with Google Play Music All Access's radio stations: After an hour, its browser window told me, "The queue is currently empty." This would never happen in Pandora or any other of its ilk. It could be a sign that Google doesn't have as large a music library or that its algorithm still needs tuning.

Another downside was that there was a sometimes a significant pause before the next song in the playlist started playing. I couldn't find any setting to omit this gap. Another problem is one shared with most digital music is that you don't get all the performance information you would on a CD booklet?soloists for choral performances and other credits.

You can thumbs up or down any tune in the playlist at any time, and switch to any song to play immediately. In the browser, no matter what you've got going on in the main window area?settings, library, whatever?you'll see the play controls with the album thumbnail, repeat, skip back, pause, skip ahead, and shuffle. The volume slider, thumbs up and down, and playlist buttons are to the right of these. A nice touch is that the song you're playing becomes the browser tab title?this means, that in Windows 7, you can hover the mouse cursor over the browser's taskbar button to see the track name. The same goes for when you're working in another browser tab and you hover the cursor over the Google Play tab.

At any time while you're playing the radio stream, you can add the current song to your library, create a new playlist, or share the song. The sharing option at first looks like it's limited to acquaintances with Google accounts, but you can also type an email address in the To box. Unlike a lot of streaming radio services, you can see several songs ahead, and nix those you don't want to hear or play those you do immediately.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/9J1aS6WoKDs/0,2817,2385570,00.asp

larry bird chauncey billups caucus results exton kurt warner kurt warner ricky williams