YouTube 'Music Key', its long-rumoured music subscription service, will officially launch in beta in the coming days, with Google's video giant providing competition for the likes of Spotify and Pandora, and launches alongside a new 'music' tab for the video service itself.
YouTube has long been a key music service for millions, but the new Music Key service and Music tab both acknowledge this, allowing for a far more comprehensive and feature packed listening experience.
The free to all YouTube Music tab that arrives across the service brings the ability to easily find and play high audio quality albums, discover new music and listen to non-stop playlists is useful and eagerly awaited
But it's the £9.99/$9.99 monthly subscription service, called Music Key that will provide the headlines.
Tuning up
For that money you will get an advert-free listening experience and be able to keep the sound going while in other apps, or when the lock screen is on.
There is also an offline listening feature that allows you to locally cache tunes to your device for listening when streaming is not possible.
Subscribers also get the added bonus of a bundled Google Play Music sub - and there's a period where you can get a reduction in the monthly fee.
The new features will roll out in the coming days, according to Google, with the free features landing first and the subscription services - inevitably in beta for now - following soon afterwards.
