Google Play Music is an effective, and excellent arm of Google. You’re able to upload up to 20,000 of your own music files (mp3s/AAC/FLAC) — for free. You will need to download their Music Manager software —fret not, the .exe size is less than 1mb. Their Play Music Store is simple to use, their mp3s are encoded at 320kbps, although you’re better off buying individual tracks and entire albums on Amazon for a cheaper price. For iTunes store costumers, ditto. The GUI looks and works fine on Firefox, IE, Safari and especially sweet on Chrome, which you can enable a HTML5 player and desktop notifications. My favorite feature is their Android app, just like their web player it can stream your music to your phone using it’s data plan or wi-fi. Unless you have a lousy connection to either, the music loads & sounds fantastic.

I have a major trip coming up, and this service will be a major help… especially once I upload my entire Oingo Boingo discography!