Beats Music is Coming for Spotify’s Head on January 21st

Details have been sparse on Beats Music (formerly Daisy), the new streaming music service formed out of the ashes of MOG that’s being spearheaded by Trent Reznor, Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine. We still don’t know a whole lot more than we did at this time last year, but we do know this: the service is set to launch on January 21st.

Here are some other details culled from a report over the weekend in The New York Times [via Metal Insider]:

• It will cost $10/month for all-you-can-stream
• There will be a 30-day trial period, but no permanent free tier (similar to Google Play Music)
• The main selling point of Beats Music vs. other services is the curation, a human element in addition to computer algorithms, for people who don’t know what they want to listen to.
• In many ways it sounds like Beats Music will be relying on the success and branding of Beats Headphones as a tool to leverage the new service.
• The marketing campaign for the launch will include a major integration deal with AT&T, regular plugs on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and a Super Bowl ad.

Looking to the metal space details are also sparse, but if Beats is simply a new front-end for MOG and all the latter’s deals transferred over, we can assume there will be plenty of music for the headbanging. MOG always had a decent selection of metal.

The big question: will Beats Music be able to trump Spotify? MOG and Rdio haven’t been able to do it, and even Apple hasn’t been able to do it with iTunes Radio (although the latter is more akin to Pandora). But Jimmy Iovine and co. are betting that the human curation element is going to be the difference maker, comparing the lack of direction of the other services to a figurative fart in a windstorm. With Spotify’s existing mainstream dominance it’s going to be a rough road, although it’s certainly not impossible; it’s all going to come down to marketing and branding. Selling $350 sets of headphones to the masses seemed incredibly unlikely too.

BeatsMusic.com is now accepting username sign-ups if you want to claim yours early.