Music Key is YouTube’s introduction into the music streaming world, offering ad-free, background play and offline listening anytime, anywhere. There are a lot of new music streaming services out there today, but this is one to keep an eye out for.

If you were part of the lucky select group of people who were invited to join the Beta round this past fall, chances are you fell in love the service.

Unlike other streaming services, YouTube is the go-to for on demand music. When we know exactly what we want to listen to, watch, or even learn, YouTube has turned into the place for all of our searches. Whereas other streaming services take us to curated ‘related artist’ playlists. YouTube Music Key, owned by Google, is turning into the one-stop shop for music.

It is music video focused that will allow ad-free, offline playback, even when you exit the app or lock your phone. Imagine that, you’re able to watch music videos while offline, in airplane mode or even when no wifi is available without wiping out your data plan.

Music Key provides you access to store Google Play’s music database which consists of 50,000 songs. It can also extend your entire music collection with a library of 30 million more. Start your Music Key subscription today!

Ad-free – ThroughYouTube Music Key, you’ll be able to listen to music without seeing or hearing ads. Ads won’t be shown before or during eligible music videos you watch on YouTube.com, music videos as well as other playlists, which will play continuously on your mobile device without interruption. You will still see ads on other YouTube videos, however. The Ad-free badge  tells you that a video can be ad-free.

Off-line Access – Subscribers can make music videos and playlists available for playback when there is low or no internet connection. Click the Add to Offline icon below the video, or select Add to Offline from a video’s menu to get started. An available offline icon will appear below the video once it has been added to offline. To access videos or playlists that have been added to Offline, touch Offline in the Guide. To remove a video from Offline, touch the available offline icon again and select Remove. It is as easy as that.

Guide – The Guide is your companion around YouTube to easily access your favorite content. The Guide icon  can be found in the upper left corner of the screen. If you’re not signed in to YouTube, the Guide will show a “Best of YouTube” section with links to popular YouTube video categories such as music, sports and gaming.

Background Play – With a Music Key subscription, you can navigate to other apps on your mobile device and your video will continue to play in the background, even if you lock your cell phone.

What does this mean for independent artists? Music Key will own the music and artist discovery more so than any of it’s competitors. This is huge news for emerging artists here at Vydia. It is geared toward music videos only, allowing independent and emerging artists more exposure than ever. Stay up to date on when Music Key will be readily available to everyone. YouTube Music Key will cost $9.99 a month. At launch, Google will offer a promotional price of $7.99 a month. A YouTube Music Key subscription includes a subscription to Google Play Music and the ability to watch official music videos right from the Play Music app.

So how do emerging artists get on track to breaking out in Music Key? We are happy to announce we will be adding an Audio to Video conversion tool in the near future. Start your release here! Monetize your music videos and audio files through Vydia!