Google Play & Hindi Music — Taking on the stalwarts

Disclaimer: This and the articles that follow are an attempt at understanding the music tech industry from a Product perspective. We do not claim to be experts in the field. All we claim is to be students of music tech. We hope this series will help others understand music tech and hopefully appreciate the industry.

TL;DR: Perfect radios for free, serious contenders for the top spot in Hindi Music. For a strange reason. (YouTube access)

Anything Google touches, turns to gold. Alright, alright not everything, I’m looking at you Google reader and Google Wave. Also, Google plus. But I digress.

Coming back to music, Google made waves by beating Spotify to Indian Market. This is no easy feat considering Spotify had a 3 year head start. Another nail-in-the-coffin was merging YouTube Red and Google Play Music in the US. However, Red is still to reach India. Expect a post then as well.

Google Play Music gives you unlimited radios free for no charge and a 14 day card free trial that I am using to write this post. Subscription adds up individual song playback capabilities among other niceties. A beautiful feature is to be able to see the next 3 songs in the radio in the notification shade. Absolutely brilliant.

The fact that I can buy music as well as stream it from the same platform has some attractiveness to it. Let’s see how this competition plays out.

Google does not focus on Windows apps but if you want check this out. Help him out if you can. Shout out to Samuel Attard.

Alright, let’s talk music.

Here’s what we’ll do

• Find songs from most music labels in India.
• Find songs from all eras.
• Find a few of the most popular as well as the least known music.
• Find a ton of Indipop music and some classical music too.

I have set the bar higher for Google Play Music as compared to Pandora and Spotify because Google Play Music is officially here in India.

I expect Google to have a better understanding of Indian music taste and hopefully have better radios.

Let’s listen to some music then. Be right back!

Alright, this was fun. My overall experience of Hindi music was just better at Google Play Music. It’s just more perceptive about Hindi music as compared to Spotify. I am not discussing Pandora here because Spotify was clear winner for me for the Hindi Music part.

Here are my findings:

1. Music Discovery is a blessing. Homepage gives you access to more than 50 radios.
2. Radios are based on artists you like, albums, moods, genres, time of the day/week.
3. Most popular music is all there.
4. New music, thankfully, is present. As new as released this month.
5. Old music is omnipresent. Nothing much to talk about. I did miss a few tracks but I’d let it slide.
6. Indie music was a mixed bag. I could find some like Shiamak Davar’s Jaane Kisne and didn’t find Meet brother’s Boond.
7. Now I’m all nostalgic and I have to listen to Boond. But I can because YouTube lives inside of Google Play Music.
8. This is a brilliant approach and one that no one else can replicate. I will find a song I am looking for, either in audio or else in video.
9. I’m feeling lucky radio is a must have. Thankfully it’s free.

This is the third post in this series. Find the first one here and second one here. Please share your feedback (Hopefully constructive) with me. Engage with me on my Twitter. Find me on LinkedIn.

Keep up the good work, GPM.

PS: I was itching to write GPM instead of Google Play Music. I feel so much better now.

Signing off!