Google's music-subscription service will try to anticipate its listeners' mood swings as it amplifies its competition with Pandora, Spotify and other popular services that play tunes over the Internet.

Starting Tuesday, the $10-a-month All Access service will make music suggestions based on educated guesses about each subscriber's mood and likely activities at certain points in the day or week.

For instance, a subscriber who opens the service on a smartphone on a Monday morning might be offered a playlist suited for commuting, going to the gym or getting motivated for work. Opening the app on Monday evening, though, might generate songs appropriate for eating dinner, studying or unwinding.

Six different music mixes created for different emotions and activities — with such labels as "Jumping Out of Bed" or "In The Lonely Hour" — will be automatically displayed for All Access subscribers in the U.S. and Canada. The mixes won't be played unless the subscriber selects one. The feature won't be immediately available in the other 43 countries where All Access is sold.

The mood music also will be tailored to each listener's tastes, so a subscriber who already has signaled a preference for rock and an aversion for country music would be more likely to hear the Rolling Stones perform "Monkey Man" than "Dead Flowers" in their mixes.

Subscribers also will be able to request playlists designed for specific activities such as napping or housecleaning.

Google's attempt to cater to people's moods reflects the growing importance of delivering soundtracks that suit listeners' discrete tastes and lifestyles. Making the right recommendation is becoming more crucial now that Google, Pandora and Spotify have secured the licensing rights to most of the same music.

"The content is roughly the same, so the main thing you can do for a user now is to have the right context," said Brandon Bilinski, product manager for Google Play Music, which runs All Access. "We want to get our listeners to the right music to fit the mood and make them feel good."

Google Inc. picked up the mood-melding technology in its July purchase of Songza, a free music service with about 5 million listeners.

Google's All Access service launch just 17 months ago, leaving the company that runs the Internet's dominant search engine and other leading digital services in the unfamiliar position of trying to catch up.

Pandora Media Inc.'s free Internet radio station boasts 76 million monthly listeners, while Spotify has 40 million listeners, including more than 10 million subscribers to its $10-per-month service. Google hasn't disclosed how many people subscribe to its All Access service, which offers a music library spanning 30 million titles.

Selecting songs based on listener's shifting moods is similar to what a smart music player called Aether Cone does. That player draws upon the music from another subscription service called Rdio Unlimited, which also charges $10 per month.

Pandora, Spotify and other services all strive to lead their audiences to mixes and genres that will please them, though the others tend to depend on computer algorithms that analyze each person's preferences and listening histories.

Combining human knowledge with a computer's analytical powers is similar to what Beat Electronics was doing with its own music-streaming service before Apple Inc. bought it for $3 billion earlier this year. Apple has said Beats' recommendation system eventually might be blended into its own music-streaming service, though that hasn't happened yet.

Google's new feature includes several thousand playlists assembled by Songza music aficionados that include DJs, performers and critics. Songza's hand-picked playlists will be slightly adjusted by algorithms programmed to learn more about each listener's tastes and habits.

As time goes on, Google hopes to provide even more nuanced playlists that acknowledge a person's mood is likely to be much different while driving to work on a Friday morning than a Monday morning. For now, though, the Mountain View, California, company will depend on cues from each subscriber.

"We can be smart about a lot of things, but it's really hard to tell a person's mood," Bilinski said.

(ap)

(Reuters) - Punk rock band Green Day, rockers Nine Inch Nails and singer Sting are among the 2015 nominees announced on Thursday for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

They lead a diverse list that includes The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the late singer Lou Reed, German electronic group Kraftwerk, Motown singers The Marvelettes, and The Smiths, who broke up many years ago.

Artists are eligible 25 years after the release of their first record for induction into the Hall of Fame, which was established in 1983.

"Rock and roll incorporates the styles of so many different kinds of music and that's what makes this group of nominees, and this art form, so powerful and unique," Joel Peresman, the president and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, said in a statement.

Rockers Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, soul group Chic, rappers N.W.A, the late blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, California funk group War, the R&B group The Spinners and singer Bill Withers were also nominated.

More than 700 artists, music industry professionals and historians will decide who will be inducted. Fans will also be able to cast their votes. The top five artists selected by the public will comprise a "fans' ballot" that will be counted with the other ballots to select the 2015 inductees.

The winners will be announced in December and inducted into the Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Cleveland on April 18.

(AP) — Hillsong UNITED used their chart-topping song "Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)" to bring home five trophies Tuesday night at the Dove Awards.

The song, which has been on the top of Billboard's Hot Christian Songs chart for more than 50 weeks, reigned at the Gospel Music Association's 45th annual Christian music awards and won in three different categories, including song of the year.

The band, which started as the youth band for Hillsong Church in Australia, also took home trophies for artist of the year and contemporary Christian performance of the year.

Other top winners were Switchfoot, with three awards, and Skillet with two awards. Rapper Lecrae and Bart Milliard of MercyME were the hosts for the awards show, which airs on the Trinity Broadcasting Network on Sunday, Oct. 12.

(AP) — Outlaw country singer Waylon Jennings owned a vintage motorcycle that had previously belonged to his close friend, rock 'n' roll star Buddy Holly.

Jennings was supposed to have been with Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson when the crooners were killed in a 1959 small-plane crash that became known as "the Day the Music Died."

Two decades later, members of Holly's band, the Crickets, tracked down the red Ariel Cyclone and gave it to Jennings as a birthday gift that he kept in his living room until he died in 2002.

The bike is among thousands of items that Jennings' estate is putting on the auction block Sunday online and at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix.

Jennings, known for his black cowboy hat, recorded 16 No. 1 country singles over his decades-long career. His hits include the theme from the "Dukes of Hazard," a television show that he also narrated, and the Willie Nelson duet "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys."

Something literally connected to Nelson also will be up for sale: his braids.

The signature locks were presented in 1983 as a gift to celebrate Jennings' sobriety at a party thrown by Johnny Cash, said Arlan Ettinger, co-founder of Guernsey's, the New York City-based auction house running the sale.

Jennings teamed with Nelson, Cash and Kris Kristofferson to form the country super group, the Highwaymen. Their original contract, signed by all four members, is also up for sale.

Ettinger wouldn't estimate how much the items would go for.

"It's very hard to say, particularly when something is made valuable by virtue of its history," Ettinger said. But the motorcycle, "I certainly think it's going to bring hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Jennings' widow, singer Jessi Colter, who lives in Arizona, provided the items for sale, which also include guitars, handwritten song lyrics, a letter signed by John Lennon and a boxing robe worn by Muhammad Ali, Ettinger said.

The singer lived in suburban Phoenix when he died in 2002 at age 64 of diabetes-related health problems.

Ettinger said he had considered holding the auction in the country music capital of Nashville, Tennessee, but Colter said her husband loved Arizona more than most places.

"He felt most at home here," Ettinger said.

Some auction proceeds will benefit Phoenix Children's Hospital per Colter's wishes, Ettinger said.

(Reuters) - Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett, bridging a 60-year age gap to form one of music's unlikeliest pairs, launched a jazz album on Monday that lets the pop diva put aside her wacky image to sing sweet harmonies with the elder statesman of cool.

"Cheek to Cheek," on sale on Tuesday after a launch concert in the ornate Renaissance setting of the Grand-Place in Brussels, features jazz standards by Cole Porter, Duke Ellington and others a distant world away from Lady Gaga's 21st century.

"When I began writing music for the music industry, I became known as the quirky girl from downtown New York," she told a news conference at the 15th-century city hall.

"So I tailored my music to be that way, to get noticed, to be able to travel more and play more shows," said the 28-year-old artist known to many as much for startling costumes - like a robe made of meat - as for her innovative music and stage shows.

But swathed in blue velvet with a 2-metre (6-foot) train, Lady Gaga this week was more 1950s Hollywood star than queen of MTV in 2014 - although still easily young enough to be Bennett's grand-daughter.

"I feel liberated," she said, holding the hand of her fellow Italian-American New Yorker and musing on the challenges of old-style jazz. "It's been over eight years and I've not been singing out. But Tony will not accept any less than all of me."

The two first met in 2011 at a charity concert in New York and a short time afterwards, recorded a version of "The Lady is a Tramp" for Bennett's album Duets II.

"I was overjoyed that he had heard that I'd been singing jazz for so long, perhaps I was even afraid that I had lost that part of me," Lady Gaga said.

Bennett, who shot to fame with "Because of You" in 1951, said he enjoyed the simplicity of a jazz setting.

"I started the very same way as she did, with thousands of people cheering," he said.

"Later on I said I want to keep it in a simple way. Instead of the big stadiums, I'd like to play in fine acoustical homes."

For the concert to launch the album, the two chose a grand but intimate outdoor location, setting up stage on the Grand-Place, a site of pomp and pageantry down the centuries.

Once again, Lady Gaga kept it simple, sticking to a glittery gold cocktail dress and refraining from any of the costume changes that her live performances are known for.

Another change was the composition of the approximately 5,000-strong audience on the square, combining Lady Gaga's young fan base with many middle-aged spectators.

For about 30 minutes, the two performed some of the highlights of the album, from the upbeat duet "It Don't Mean a Thing" to Lady Gaga's solemn solo performance "Lush Life."

The crowd in Brussels responded enthusiastically to the brief show and Lady Gaga appeared touched by the reaction as she and Bennett bowed out.

Before the concert, Bennett had already predicted that Lady Gaga would strike a chord with fans as a jazz singer.

"I know that when Lady Gaga comes out you will hear a reaction that's never been heard in this great city," Bennett said. "People love her, and she loves them back."