2013 is the year that my mom (who still has a flip phone and turns it off when she has completed a call) has purchased an iPod. This has proven to me the the iPod’s time of relevance has come to pass. I have used the “mom” rule successfully many times before when it comes to electronics.

I have been interested in “cloud” music for a while. I like the idea that if I ever need to hear “Baby Snakes” or “Girls With Guns” that all I have to do is log onto any computer (not even my own) and I can access MY copy of this song and play it instantly.

I am an iPhone owner, so I only just discovered the Android Market aka Google Play and the Google Play music storage feature.

You can upload 20,000 songs (not a misprint) for free and access them from the homepage of Google or gmail.

I narrowed my digital collection to 20,000 (was 4,000 over) and could not use DRM-protected iTunes files (protected .aac). I think that was maybe 30 songs. It would not accept .wav files either, but you can make them into mp3s and they work.

MOST of the files are not uploaded, they are just “recognized” by Google Play and they match it with their copy. If they can’t match it, THEN they upload it.

You can stream from ANY Android phone or tablet and from any computer, but not iphone or other devices that do not use flash.

You can burn my house down. but you can’t take my music collection!

The Instant Mix feature is pretty decent (unlike iTunes’ Genius which was pretty bad). It makes mixes based on a single song or LP. Kind of like Pandora w/o commercials and ONLY using your music.

I am so impressed by this program and it’s potential to use with BluTooth to shove my music down everyone’s throats.