SoundCloud Launches Subscription Service
Last year, a leaked contract showed that SoundCloud was planning on entering the streaming-service wars, and SoundCloud confirmed those reports back in January. And now, as the Verge reports, SoundCloud’s own streaming service is now out there in the world. It’s called SoundCloud Go, and it will cost-you the industry-standard $9.99 a month.
The hook for SoundCloud Go seems to be this: It’ll let you hear all the big songs that are being offered on every other streaming service, as well as the many, many songs that are only available on SoundCloud. Up until now, it’s been impossible to make playlists that include regular songs and SoundCloud-only songs, and now you can do that. SoundCloud CEO Alex Ljung says, “It feels very different when you can have one playlist with everything you want, whether it’s back catalog Drake or a beef track he just recorded.”
But SoundCloud’s catalog isn’t as comprehensive as those of its competitors. According to the Verge, the service’s paid catalog includes about 15 million songs, which is half as much as Spotify, Apple Music, or Tidal offers. Kanye West’s albums aren’t on the service, even if his SoundCloud-only bonus tracks are. And the Beatles, whose music is on every other streaming service, don’t have their music on SoundCloud. The exclusive-to-SoundCloud songs remain free for non-subscribers, which could also prove to be a problem, and which hopefully won’t lead SoundCloud to make them all subscriber-only. It’s also got an interface that’s reportedly difficult to use.
In any case, the already-crowded streaming-service market just got a little more crowded.