Top Kiwi Artists Release Exclusive MySpace Playlists to Mark the Launch

MySpace today hosted a free gig featuring some of New Zealand's best homegrown talent in Auckland today to celebrate the local launch of MySpace Music. Featuring Midnight Youth, The Brunettes, The Naked and Famous, The Family Cactus and The EarlyBirds, this epic line-up marked the official launch of MySpace Music which soft launched in New Zealand on October 1st.

A joint venture among MySpace, EMI Music, Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, MySpace Music offers Kiwi's access to content from the four major music labels, as well as access to The Orchard and IODA catalogues - two of the world's largest independent digital music aggregators - for free.

With artist playlisting and personal music players a central component of the new MySpace Music experience, high profile Kiwis including Dane Rumble, Midnight Youth, Gin Wigmore and Drew Neemia created themed MySpace Music playlists to mark the launch. To check out their selections go their MySpace profiles or MySpace New Zealand Music homepage www.myspace/music. The mix tape of the 21st century, MySpace Music playlists allow users to be curators of content, creating and sharing playlists with the wealth of content available.

"MySpace Music is about delivering fans access to the music and artists they love and giving artists an unparalleled opportunity to connect and stay in touch with their music fans. What better way to the ring in this great new MySpace Music service than with a huge free party for local MySpace users featuring some of New Zealand's best talent?" explained Nick Love, Business Development Director, Australasia.

The first territory outside of the United States to launch MySpace Music, New Zealanders can now experience this ever-growing catalogue of fully licensed audio tracks, personal music players, user and artist playlisting, as well as the opportunity to purchase and download single songs and full albums on iTunes. Additional products and functionality include:

MySpace Music Product Overview

* Free and unlimited ad-supported, full-length audio streaming of single songs and albums

* Free and unlimited ability to create and share playlists with easy addition of tracks to playlists via drag-and-drop functionality

* Access to MySpace Music's vast catalogue of content from EMI Music, Sony Music, Universal Music Group , Warner Music Group, The Orchard and IODA artists and more

* The ability to purchase and download music on iTunes

* The My Music personal music management toolset allows users to create and edit their playlists, discover what their friends, favourite bands and celebrities are listening to, as well as browse and search for songs

* The Artist Activity Feed in the pop-up player provides users with constant updates from their favorite artists, including new songs added to player, blog entries, recent uploaded photos and updates to their playlists

* Ringtones powered by Fox Mobile

MySpace Music hosts more than 5 million major, indie, and unsigned artist profiles, providing a vast artist-powered collection of songs, music videos, tour dates, blogs, and photos. MySpace's deep, long-standing ties to the music community, has delivered numerous exclusive releases from some of the most popular and respected musicians in the world. The company's new music product and marketing initiatives will greatly enhance the existing MySpace Music offline concert franchises including Secret Shows.