Google Play Music gets more Material Design tweaks in latest update

Google Play Music scored an update today, but don't get too excited, as it's a relatively minor one. Most of what's new are slight design tweaks that bring it up to speed with Material Design and away from its previous look.

Along with some general design tweaks, the artist, genre, and album pages have gotten a bit of a redesign, and you'll also find a change in the look of the slide-in drawer on the left of the app as well as small changes to the way artist info and album artwork are displayed. The orange background at the top of the page has also been extended downward slightly to replace the gray tabbed look of the previous version.

The update is rolling out now, but in usual Google Play fashion, we're seeing it on some devices sooner than others.

The 'Frozen' soundtrack is free on Google Play

You might well hate yourself, but your kids will love you. The (admittedly excellent) soundtrack for the "Frozen" movie is available for free today on Google Play. (At least it is here in the U.S.)

If you've got kids, do 'em a favor and give in and download this ASAP. They'll love you for it. And we won't tell anyone that you already knew all the words anyway.

• Download: Frozen (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (free)

Google brings Songza-powered Play Music Playlists to the UK

Curated playlists are offered by multiple streaming services and Google has rolled out a similar feature on Play Music in the UK. Concierge playlists for Google's music service have been available in the US and Canada, but it's a welcomed move to expand on availability and offer the feature to British music lovers.

Google purchased Songza earlier this year, incorporating the curation startup's content into its own Play Music. The special playlists utilize a mixture of curation from resident DJs, musicians, music critics, along with learning what you enjoy and load up tracks the service believes you'll like.

That's after you've selected a particular time of day, mood or activity. It's a useful feature to help discover new music and enjoy tracks tailored to your tastes, rather than sitting through minutes of torture. There's also offline playback, enabling you to enjoy said tunes without eating up data.

It's worth noting that you'll need to be forking out for the Play Music subscription to be able to enjoy these playlists.