Google Music Officially Released, Android Market Music Store Included

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Google held a special “These Go To Eleven” media event today to fully launch its official Google Music service alongside its new Android Market music store.

Google introduced Music Beta in May, at the company’s yearly Google I/O event and that service fully matured today into Google Music, “a broader platform” that will let you find and purchase your favorite music tracks and share them with friends.

Google Music will let you upload your music to the cloud and the access it on all the supported devices. The service is free of charge and anyone can access it now by going at music.google.com. Once your music is uploaded and/or purchased you’ll be able to pin it to various devices and then use those devices to listen to the pinned tracks even when an Internet connection isn’t within reach.

Google took a clear hit at Apple during the event when mentioning the Google Music will be free, up to 20,000 songs by saying that “other services think you need to pay for music you own. We don’t.” But since we’re talking about differences between the two music in the cloud approaches, they did forget to mention that other services will not require users to actually upload the music to the cloud.

What’s more important is that Google has gotten into the music-selling business too and made it all official today. Songs will be available in the Android Market where Android users will have access to 13 million tracks, which is an impressive number. The tracks are priced at $0.99 or $1.29 in case you were wondering, not that we expected Google to charge more than the competition. Naturally, you’ll be able to buy single tracks or full albums, and each song will come in 320kbps MP3 quality and offer a free 90-second preview. Each day you’ll be able to get a free song, a nice little perk offered by Google, that’s on top of all the free tracks already available in the music stores.

Once purchased, the songs appear both in the Google Music library but also in the Music Manager, the client you’ll use on your computer to manage all your Google Music. Besides songs, Google Music also offers plenty of music-related content on the official website, including video interviews with some of your favorite artists.

Google has signed partnership with various music publishers, including Universal, EMI and Sony Music, and it will have 13 million songs for you, with 8 million of them already available. Music sharing happens via Google+ (how else) where you’ll be able to let friends enjoy free previews of full tracks, and listen to the music they share with you.

Google will also offer Google Music users some exclusive content, as follows:

• The Rolling Stones are offering an exclusive, never-before-released live concert album, Brussels Affair (Live, 1973), including a free single, “Dancing with Mr. D.” This is the first of six in an unreleased concert series that will be made available exclusively through Google Music over the coming months.
• Coldplay fans will find some original music that’s not available anywhere else: a free, live recording of “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall”, a five-track live EP from their recent concert in Madrid and a remix of “Paradise” by Tiësto.
• Busta Rhymes’s first single from his upcoming album, Why Stop Now (feat. Chris Brown), is available for free.
• Shakira’s live EP from her recent concert in Paris and her new studio single, “Je L’Aime à Mourir” are both being offered up free.
• Pearl Jam are releasing a live album from their 9/11/11 concert in Toronto, free to Google Music users.
• Dave Matthews Band are offering up free albums from two live concerts, including new material from Live On Lakeside.
• Tiësto is offering up a new mix, “What Can We Do?” (feat. Anastacia), exclusively to Google Music users.

Independent artists will have access to a special Artist Hub that will let them distribute their own music via Google Music. Artists will have to pay a one-time $25 fee and then they’ll retain 70% of all music sales made through the store. Unfortunately for Android users, the service will be available to U.S. Android device users for now and it requires Android 2.2 or later to work properly.

Anyone excited?