Google (GOOGL) hopes its sprawling empire will soon extend to television and music, but has had little luck convincing the incumbent players to play nice with its products. As a back door, it seems Google is planning to produce its own content. It’s throwing $100 million into original programming on Youtube, and today Google launched its own music blog, Magnifier.
The site is intended to get users signed up for Google Music, the cloud storage locker which is still in beta. On the homepage today, Magnifier is offering free tracks from My Morning Jacket and The Walkmen for anyone who signs up for Google Music.
The site is shooting for a hip, editorial voice:
Wondering what Magnifier is? Well, when I was in junior high school, I had a friend whose older cousin lived in England, and that cousin would always send my friend great new records we usually knew nothing about, except that if the cousin liked them there was a very good chance we would, too. That’s how we first heard the Clash’s debut LP, Closer by Joy Division, and countless other albums I still treasure today.
So, Magnifier is basically Music Beta’s cousin who lives in England, except that we don’t actually live in England, and you don’t have to wait weeks for new packages to arrive via air mail. Because we’ll bring you new free music each and every day. Sometimes it will be songs you haven’t heard of by artists you have. Sometimes it will be new artists we think deserve more attention. And sometimes there will be video interviews and live performances. But you can always count on the following:
- You can add any or all of the songs to your Music Beta library instantly
- You can do this for free
- The artist is being featured because someone on our team thinks they’re pretty great
We hope you enjoy browsing through all these free songs and videos as much as we enjoy bringing them to you.– Tim Quirk, Head of Music Programming
Got that? Google Music is your cool older cousin from overseas who sends you punk albums with naked ladies on the inside of the record sleeve. Or at least, a giant corporation trying to be that in order to lure you into its music service. But hey, its free music, and artists are getting paid. So if you’re an early adopter, what have you really got to lose (besides street cred)?
