Go is SoundCloud´s response to Spotify and Apple Music, a United States exclusive that will arrive at other territories “later on this year”. I tried the services outside the US to give you living anywhere else in the world the pros and cons of this new streaming service.

Pros

Let’s be positive and start with the advantages, although let me tell you upfront, there aren’t many.

• Fast downloads: Tracks download quickly, especially with a relatively speedy connection (I right now have 8 Mbps downloads.)
• Catalogue: Glass half full, SoundCloud has a broad selection of “mainstream” tracks and artists. You will find artists like Ellie Goulding, The Weeknd, and Ariana Grande, to name a few – Go has over 125 million songs, although a lot come from indie creators that had uploaded their content years ago for free.
• No ads. That’s a given. At $12.99 you definitely should expect an ad-free experience.
• No need to use a VPN outside the US to enjoy Go’s content. If you choose to try the service outside the US – here we provide you with the steps – you won’t need to keep a VPN connection turned on at all times to use Go or download tracks for offline listening. You just need a tunneling connection to fool SoundCloud into letting you subscribe to the premium tier.
• SoundCloud’s interface. By now, you may be familiarized with SoundCloud’s mobile interface, and its cool fast-forwarding tool, which is very useful when you want to rewind or skip to a particular part of a song.

Cons

• Library organization. Apart from the fact that Go isn’t available around the globe, the most annoying thing about the service is its library organization. You won’t be able to access all your favourite albums and instead will have to create playlists with all the songs that comprise the record you want to download.
• Downloads. As mentioned before, you will need to create a playlist to be able to download your tracks for offline consumption. Spotify kind of forces you to do this, by saving an album to your music and then letting you keep it. But at least, you can find content by albums, and not just random tracks that you have to organize yourself.
• Price. Come on, $12.99 a month? Sure, that after Apple’s 30 percent cut, but iPhone and iPad users who want to subscribe through the App Store will think twice before committing to Go.

How about that? There aren’t as many disadvantages as I thought. Nevertheless, the lack of albums and high price are two reasons that will scare users looking to spend on a monthly music subscription. (I won’t pay after my 30-day trial ends.)

Here are some screenshots of Go for iPad:

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”12″ gal_title=”Soundcloud Go”]

What do you think of Go? Are planning on subscribing when it’s available in your country? Please leave your comments below.

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