Beats Music, the new music subscription service from the men and women who brought you MOG and the Beats line of designer headphones, is now live.
The service launched earlier today, inviting music listeners in the United States to stream from its catalog of around 20 million songs, all for just $9.99 a month. Of course, that type of subscription service — pay month and stream millions of tracks — isn’t exactly new.
So the company’s team of artists and developers, including Jimmy Iovine, Dr. Dre, Trent Reznor and Ian Rogers, are positioning the service as a something that’s more tailor-made for music fans than its rivals. It’s carted music journalists and writers from around the country to help keep the service’s catalog of playlists and highlights fresh. Just For You provides subscribers with fresh albums and playlists four times a day. The Sentence creates a never-ending playlist based on the actions, location and surroundings of the listener. There’s also Highlights, a staff-created and recommended playlists based on different events outside of the service itself.
So how do Beats fans get the service? The company is offering a 30 day free trial to users on its website. AT&T users will get to try the carrier’s exclusive Beats Music family plan before anyone else. That plan will grant 10 devices Beats Music access for $14.99. Users will need to head to their local Target to get their hands on prepaid Beats Music cards. Anyone who purchases any piece of electronics at Target will get a one-month free trail of Beats Music during the week of January 26th. All told, the service seems relatively robust. Beats Music on iPhone and Android are both available today. The company has confirmed that a Windows Phone client won’t arrive until sometime this Friday. It’s also on the web at BeatsMusic.com.
For now, we’ll try not to notice that the company seems to have borrowed heavily from Microsoft’s Zune branding and focus on what truly matters: Dr. Dre has now launched a music subscription service and cornered the luxury headphone market and we’re still waiting for the Detox album.