Valve has opened up the Steam Music Beta to everyone and the steps for enabling it are below. Currently Steam Music only supports MP3's but they plan on adding other files as the beta progresses. After enabling the beta I pointed Steam at my music library and it spent some time listening to a few albums.
If you are looking for a spartan way to play music, Steam Music is it. That said, over the years I have been spoiled by certain features like playlists and the ability to look at your collection by album cover art(This mode is available in Big Picture but not Desktop, yet). I imagine Valve will work on adding some of these features but if you are looking for a simple way to play music in Steam, you can.
Steam Music ships with in home streaming support, so if you have your music collection on your Desktop you should be able to steam it to your Steam console or other connect Steam accounts. Many people are asking for features like Pandora integration and such but I am happy they are starting with the ability to play our personal music libraries because that's currently how I listen to music.
"Opting in or out of a client beta can be done by opening the Steam Client and clicking on the Steam button located on the menu at the top left. Once you have the menu open click on Settings.
If an open beta is available or you're already opted in, it will be displayed within the beta participation section of the Settings page. To adjust your beta participation status click the Change button.
Once you've clicked Change a window will appear with a drop-down menu. From the menu you'll be able to choose from the available betas. You'll also be able to opt-out of all betas by selecting the menu option.
When you've made your selection click Ok.
You'll then be required to restart Steam. Once Steam has been restarted it will begin updating."
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steammusic#announcements/detail/197348634580485495
If you are looking for a spartan way to play music, Steam Music is it. That said, over the years I have been spoiled by certain features like playlists and the ability to look at your collection by album cover art(This mode is available in Big Picture but not Desktop, yet). I imagine Valve will work on adding some of these features but if you are looking for a simple way to play music in Steam, you can.
Steam Music ships with in home streaming support, so if you have your music collection on your Desktop you should be able to steam it to your Steam console or other connect Steam accounts. Many people are asking for features like Pandora integration and such but I am happy they are starting with the ability to play our personal music libraries because that's currently how I listen to music.
"Opting in or out of a client beta can be done by opening the Steam Client and clicking on the Steam button located on the menu at the top left. Once you have the menu open click on Settings.
If an open beta is available or you're already opted in, it will be displayed within the beta participation section of the Settings page. To adjust your beta participation status click the Change button.
Once you've clicked Change a window will appear with a drop-down menu. From the menu you'll be able to choose from the available betas. You'll also be able to opt-out of all betas by selecting the menu option.
When you've made your selection click Ok.
You'll then be required to restart Steam. Once Steam has been restarted it will begin updating."
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/steammusic#announcements/detail/197348634580485495
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OK this may be a dumb question. I'm in the Steam beta channel, I pretty much live there. I've made Steam check for beta updates, and I'm up to date. Where is the music?
Never mind, I found it. You have to trim down your library to show music in the filter. That's an awkward way of getting there.
No support for network locations yet. You have to map a network drive. That's fine on Windows, and Linux mounts stuff in the filesystem by default. It's a bit trickier on Mac.
I was messing around with this a few months ago, and found it to be functional, but lacking. I'm sure they've made some improvements since then. Too comfortable in my bed to check it out right now, though...
A few months ago? Wow, where have I been?
You've been working hard! There was an option to join the Steam Music user group early on, and they were granting early beta access that way. I was hoping it would be a viable solution to iTunes, which I usually love, but seems to be lacking in support on "the bastard platform" (i.e. Windows). WinAmp would be my next choice, but it's in corporate-buyout limbo. It still works, but man is it in need of a good designer.
Has Valve said that they would integrate music purchasing through a third party service?
I'm glad they're adding this since this will help flesh out the Steam OS a bit more. However I can't really see myself using this much. I primarily listen to music through Spotify (laptop or iPod) or I use my iPod plugged into a speaker to listen to the music I own.
I have iTunes but I only ever load it up when I need to sync my iPod to it.
scrypt: No music purchasing yet SAVE the soundtracks you can already get through Steam. Interesting you mention WinAmp because the bare bones aspect of the Steam Music beta reminds me heavily of WinAmp.