From the Google Blog:
Today we introduced Magnifier, a new music discovery site that will keep your collection growing. Magnifier will feature great music and the people who make it, including videos of live performances, interviews with artists, explorations of different musical genres and free songs that you can add to your Music Beta collection.
So what band is Google’s “new music discovery site” featuring on it’s main page for its highly anticipated launch? A totally unknown band you’ve never heard of called My Morning Jacket, of course. I hear they were gonna go with this other totally unknown band you’ve never heard of called The Strokes, but then they found out that the band’s lead singer is the son of a model management mogul, and that was way too mainstream, so they went in another direction.
All playful ribbing aside, I am kind of interested to try Magnifier, when and if, ahem, I finally get a Google Music invitation, as its daily free music giveaways are only available to people with Music Beta accounts. Additionally, Magnifier will reportedly feature interviews with artists and stream live performances, on top of offering a library of songs users can access and play at their whim. Still, I can’t help but wonder how it will compete with the gargantuan array of music offered via existing subscription services such and Rdio and Spotify.
Anyway, speaking of My Morning Jacket, enjoy them now playing “Touch Me I’m Going To Scream Part II” wonderfully in the back of a British cab…