Apple’s new streaming service went live Tuesday with a flashy radio station and artist exclusives, as the company that dominated digital music through iTunes looks to the future.
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Apple Music got started with the tech giant in the unusual position of being on the back foot, as Spotify leads the fast-growing market for streaming which offers on-demand, unlimited music.
The service is betting big on celebrity names to draw attention and scored a coup when pop superstar Taylor Swift agreed, after a heated dispute, to stream her blockbuster album “1989” only on Apple Music. The centerpiece of Apple Music is Beats 1, which bills itself as a first global radio station, and will include guest hosts such as pop legend Elton John and rap entrepreneur Dr. Dre. The radio station will remain free, even for users who do not pay the $9.99 a month to stream artists, and Apple has made the service integral to its latest operating system on iPhones. But in a tacit acknowledgement that the company lags behind on streaming, Apple also eventually plans a version for users of rival Google’s Android smartphones. Another feature is called Connect, which lets artists post messages — keeping listeners on Apple Music rather than switching to social media.
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Apple Music went live at 1500 GMT, with Beats 1 initially playing ambient music by Brian Eno as users downloaded the new system. Beats 1 took to the air an hour later with host Zane Lowe, the New Zealand-born DJ who was poached from BBC Radio 1. In a signal of Apple’s effort to nurture a cool factor, Lowe’s first song was not a blockbuster hit but the song “City” by the Manchester indie pop-punk band Spring King. Lowe, who earned a reputation as an indie rock tastemaker in Britain, said that Apple Music had debated for months about which song to play first. Spring King put out an EP “with little or no fanfare” but the band’s growing following “is exactly the kind of story we need,” Lowe said. “It’s not about fanfare. It’s about quality and consistency. We’re Beats 1, we’re worldwide, and from now on, we’re always on,” he said. Lowe followed up with the new track “Dreams” by Beck, the critically acclaimed Los Angeles alternative artist who won the Grammy for Album of the Year in February.
