Nothing on the internet ever really dies, and an equally immutable fact could be nothing on the internet is ever really exclusive. Samsung smartphone owners were recently given exclusive access to Google Play Music’s “New Release Radio” station. The station is a personalized mix of new music releases — it’s updated daily and based on your listening preferences. This comes a few months after Samsung and Google partnered to make Google Play Music the default media player and streaming service on all Samsung phones.
If you have a Samsung phone, once you open the Google Play Music app, you will be prompted with a notification introducing the New Release Radio as a “Samsung Exclusive.” With a simple tap of the “check it out now” button you will be able to check out the station and add it to your Music Library. Google has not released numbers on how many people are paying for its streaming music service, but this is the latest attempt at bolstering those numbers and bringing more ears to Google. There is a free version of the service that does not require a subscription fee as well.
For Samsung, it is a way to make music streaming a selling point for new phones after its Milk Music streaming service was shut down in September 2016. Samsung Milk Music was meant to be an alternative to Pandora and Spotify, offering personalized radio stations free of charge and without ads. In the statement announcing Milk Music’s shutdown, Samsung noted it would be focusing on partnerships that help with “seamlessly integrating the best music services available today into our family of Galaxy devices.”
For those of us without Samsung smartphones, there’s good news — there is a way to enjoy Google Play Music’s daily playlist of newly released music, and you don’t even need a subscription. I tried the method mentioned below to get New Release Radio on my Moto Z Force Droid with a Gmail account that had no Google Play Music subscription, and within 20 seconds I was listening to Vince Staples’ latest song, Rain Come Down.
Spotify offers a Release Radar playlist, but only compiles the newest music released every Friday. Friday may be the international day new albums are released, but new music is being released every day in the age of blogs, Soundcloud, and YouTube. A few music veterans, like Apple Music’s Beats 1 Radio’s Zane Lowe, thinks music is being released so often, it’s hard to keep up with what is new.
Here is how to get the New Release Radio station on your mobile phone if you are not using a Samsung device:
Step 1: Navigate to the desktop website for New Release Radio from Google Play Music.
Step 2: Click on Add To Library.
Step 3: Open the Google Play Music app on your mobile device.
Step 4: Slide the left-side sidebar out and click on Music Library.
Step 5: Click on the Stations tab, and New Release Radio will be among your list of favorite stations.
Step 6: Click the Play button on the New Release Radio station and enjoy.