Google Launches Subscription Music Service, World Continues To Spin

We weren't exactly blown away by our first stab at creating a radio station on Google's new All Access service.

We weren’t exactly blown away by our first stab at creating a radio station on Google’s new All Access service.

During the keynote speech at today’s Google I/O conference, the company unveiled its latest offering — a music subscription service that appears to be intended for users of existing services like Pandora, Spotify and Rdio.

Called All Access, the service is already up-and-running on the Google Play site, offering two tiers of service — a free “standard” tier that basically allows users to upload their own music (up to 20,000 songs) for listening online and on Android devices, and a the premium All Access tier that starts with a 30-day free trial then goes up to either $7.99 (for people who sign up before June 30, 2013) or $9.99 for those who join on July 1 or after.

Like a number of existing services, the All Access package gives users the ability to listen to a catalog of songs on-demand, create “radio stations” based on songs they like.

It’s all still rather new to judge. The success of All Access will likely center on the quality of its catalog and whether or not users think they are getting their money’s worth — and whether it’s worth jumping ship from any competing streaming service they might be listening to now.

We just took it for a spin, randomly picking Metallica as the artist to base our first station on. The results are mixed to say the least (no better — and certainly no worse than we’d get on Pandora), as you might be able to see from the above screengrab. Thankfully, the All Access account lets you skip as many songs on the radio as you’d like, because we’ve got out our cursor ready to hit “skip” on more than a few of these offerings.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.