Hello, this is a review for Sky's new service Sky songs.
According to Sky this is 'A better way to discover music'. Hmmm. Effectively it lets you stream and download from a database of over 4 million songs, covering every genre there is, from alternative to pop, dance, classic and world music. You name it, Sky claims they got it.

And so far, they actually do: as part of a one-month free subscription (more of this later) I've streamed my way through the latest new albums, dug up some all-time classic rock, sang along to cheesy old pop tunes, chilled with classics and had a few cosmopolitan moments listening to some 'world music' stuff, all the while Sky delivered even on songs that are old old old or not exactly mainstream.

Once you've signed in the homepage shows the current album charts as well as songs from the UK charts, an editor's pick of albums and songs as well as some info/gossip links.
The homepage has tabs to display albums and songs by genre, artist and playlist, but I always just shortcut and use their search function, which allows you to find songs by artist, song or keyword.

The website is easy enough to navigate, and, if you select an album, you can choose to play the whole album or just individual songs. I haven't used the playlist function yet, sorry. What would be nice to see is the homepage adapting to your most common choices, like Amazon does, but hey ho, can't have everything.

Of course there're websites out there that let you stream music for free; Sky isn't one of them as you probably expected:
There're two subscriptions available: £6.49 / month give you unlimited streaming plus one album download or 10 songs. Alternatively you can opt for the £7.99 / month package which allows you to download one album or 15 songs plus unlimited streaming. You can subscribe for only one month, at the end of which you should be automatically unsubscribed, though it's probably worth checking.
Well, I suppose you can download one album from amazon and stream for free and it might work out at the same cost or cheaper. But Sky is convenient as you can do both in the same place.

You need to install the Sky downloader, but downloads are quite quick and straightforward, though not as quick as Amazon.

Would I recommend sky songs? For hassle free downloads and streaming in one place they are definitely worth considering!

Best of all: Sky songs is free for one month if you subscribe by the end of Jan (no minimum term, just tick the 'one month only box') and you get a £6.49 album download (10 songs) for free!

Enjoy!