Beats Music, a new streaming service, just went live today for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, and on the Web.
Beats is the brainchild of rapper Dr. Dre and record producer Jimmy Iovine.
At first glance, Beats strikes you as a beautiful blend between Songza and Spotify. Similar to Songza, Beats plays music for you based on your mood, location, who you're with, and what kind of music you feel like listening to. Just like Spotify, you have access to more than 20 million tracks and can create playlists for offline listening. But what really sets Beats apart from Spotify is its personalized recommendation engine, thanks, in part, to its expert curators.
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Getting started
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When you first open up the app, you'll be blown away by the design. The sign-up process is relatively quick and easy. Once you create an account, you have to select what kind of music you're into.
Beats Music costs $9.99 per month, but you can sign up for a free seven-day trial. If you're an AT&T customer, you may be able to get up to 90 days free depending on your plan.
Beats first shows you a selection of genres and instructs you to tap on the genres you like, and press and hold the ones you hate.
After you select the genres you like and dislike, you're instructed to do the same with artists. Tap on three artists you like, and press and hold the ones you hate.
Sure, it requires a bit of work to set up, but at least it gives you a very personalized experience. Now Beats will be able to show you a curated list of music that it thinks you'll dig.
Music selection
Just like Spotify, Beats Music boasts more than 20 million songs in its library. The music is also specifically tailored to you. Once you're through the setup process, there are a few ways to listen to music. The first is called "Just For You," which offers curated playlists and albums based on the preferences you specified when you first signed up.
But my favorite section is "The Sentence," which helps you find the right music for the right situation.
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A third section, called "Highlights," features promoted content like Lorde's influences and a playlist by The Rolling Stones.
Another section, called "Find It," lets you search for genre-specific playlists, curated playlists and activity-specific playlists for things like barbecuing, celebrating, breaking up, cooking, dancing and getting pumped.
Beats also has a traditional search feature, more like Spotify's, where you can find music, and download songs, playlists and albums to listen to offline.
Overall, Beats is a pretty promising new music-streaming service. It's a lot better than Spotify when it comes to music discovery, but Spotify still has the upper hand, given that it recently became free for everyone.
If you want to try out Beats, head on over to your respective app store to download it.