A week after Taylor Swift removed her entire catalog of songs from Spotify, the popular streaming service has received another critical blow which may threaten their survival. YouTube announced Wednesday that their new invite-only subscription service called “Music Key” will launch in beta next week and turn your phone’s YouTube app into an ad-free streaming music player.

According to the company’s official announcement, YouTube Music Key will offer background playback, offline listening, music videos, and a free subscription to Google Play Music. The service will combine YouTube’s new features – which includes a music tab that highlights your liked and favorited music videos, suggestions based on them, and playlists based on time of day and your current mood – with Google Play Music’s 30 million song catalog and streaming radio. Users will have the ability to continue playing songs while their mobile device screens are locked, and they can download tracks so they can be played without an Internet connection in Music Key’s mobile app.

YouTube has learned over the years that users enjoy watching their favorite artists perform the hits they want to listen to, and Midia Research analyst Mark Mulligan believes the ability to supply subscribers with the music videos for the songs they stream will help Music Key get the edge over rival streaming services.

“A cynic might say that Google is only doing this subscription service on YouTube so it would get the rights to do what it always wanted to do with the free service,” said Mulligan, adding that even merely expanding the audience that listens to free music would be profitable for Google because that would yield more opportunities to show ads and thus make more money.

The first batch of Music Key invites will be sent out to YouTube viewers in the U.S., United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Finland who have a history of watching a lot of music clips, but people can also request an invitation online. After a free six-month trial period, Music Key will temporarily cost $8 per month before escalating to its standard price of $10 per month.