Google Brings Their Play Music Streaming Service to Canada

I had a feeling that’s what the media advisory was all about.

Just as Canadian Music Week gets going, Google announced that they’re bringing its Play Music All-Access streaming service north of the border.  We’re late, of course–the US, Europe and Mexico have had it for some time–but that’s par for the course when it comes to the roll-out of Internet services.  No wonder we’re 86th in the world when it comes up adapting this new technology.

But back to Google.

For $7.99 a month (to start, anyway; it goes up to $9.99 a month later), Google Play Music offers all you-can-eat access to 25 million songs both as a live stream and off-line. Canadians can now buy music from Google’s online store and/or upload up to 20,000 songs from your library for “locker” storage, meaning you’ll be able to securely stream them anywhere.  Just like iTunes Match, in order words.

This is good news for anyone who plays in the Android ecosystem (iTunes software does not work with Android) but will have limited appeal to anyone using iOS or happy with the existing Canadian-accessible streaming services like Songza (which is free), Rdio, Deezer, Slacker and a few others–some of which have no-charge options.

Get a few more details at CBC.ca.