Songza to shut down on Jan. 31 in favor of Google Play Music

The inevitable is about to happen: Songza will soon be no more.

Released in September 2011, Songza is a music streaming service that prides itself in offering handmade playlists and a so-called Music Concierge that suggests the right music for the right moments based on activity, genre, mood, and more. It’s truly one of the better music streaming services out there, thanks mainly to its use of curation by humans as opposed to prediction by algorithms.

That specialty was impressive enough to capture the attention of Google, which acquired Songza in July last year.

Since then, Google has been integrating Songza’s core features and technology into its flagship music streaming service, Google Play Music.

RIP Songza

And now, the time has come for the team behind Songza “to focus on building a single, cohesive product” — with the product in question being, of course, Google Play Music.

As a result, Songza will shut down on Jan. 31, 2016. By that date, Songza will no longer be accessible neither through its website nor through its mobile apps. However, it will live on within Google Play Music, as announced by Songza’s cofounders in this admittedly awkward video:

If you can’t see the video embedded above, please click here.

Long live Songza

If you’re a user of Songza and you wish to continue enjoying its features, you can expect to be prompted soon to migrate your Songza listening history and favorite playlists into Google Play Music. Don’t worry, you don’t have to pay to use Songza’s features in Google Play Music since they fall outside the scope of the service’s paid subscription.

While it’s a bit saddening to see Songza go away as an independent entity, its merging with Google Play Music is but a reasonable step toward streamlining Google’s music streaming offerings and making Google Play Music better as it competes with Spotify and Apple Music.