YouTube Music App Review

Music back in November twenty fifteen. But recently the app and experience was redesigned and relaunched. What used to be heavy on music videos is now a good mix of music videos and curated playlists. And let's be honest, I understand why YouTube wants to do a music app. I mean, who knows more about music than YouTube. Now. I don't have the numbers, but I'm guessing millions, if not billions, of music videos are streamed each and every day on

their website. And that's the really smart part about all of this. YouTube has the data they know from all of these views, which acts are hot, which acts are up and coming, which artists are cooling off. They have all this data, and it's highly localized. For areas around the world, and that's kind of what YouTube Music is built off of. When you first open the app, it's going to ask you to choose some of your favorite

artists and also for access to your location. This way, it can suggest playlists for like when you're at work, the gym, and various other places. Now, I'm not a huge fan of how the app is organized. It's not like other music apps that just kind of give you a bunch of categories and present playlists in those categories. No, this is much more complicated. But pretty much every aspect of YouTube Music is personalized and that's what they want.

So right now, when I open the app, at the top of my screen, there are a bunch of playlist options for today's biggest hits. And here's where it gets confusing. There's almost too much choice. The first playlist option is something called pop hit List, but then the one right next to it is Today's biggest Hits. What's the difference,

I'm not really sure. Then I see some playlists I recently listened to, which is fine that I can easily jump back into those, And then comes the part of the app that I really like, and this kind of surprised me. There's a section of the app that features videos with recent live performances, all featuring the artists that I like. Now, these are videos I would probably never search for on my own, but there they are, and

I love watching them. It's kind of like this stuff you might have seen back in the day when you were watching your favorite artists on a late night TV show or an award show presentation. It's just cool, different versions of songs that you've already heard and you know and you love. After this, the app gets kind of murky again. You scroll down. There's an endless selection of various categories with playlists in those categories, and they all

seem to be personalized. So right now I'm seeing mellow moods, then right after that energy boosters. I even think there's a playlist based on the weather, because it's saying it looks clear outside, so I've got a summer playlist. And then there's a selection of artists that you can play similar to the artists you like, and more recommended music videos. Then there's more similar artists, and it goes on and on. It's kind of a bit much, and again, I see no way in this app to just browse through a

list of playlists in various categories. Now. I get that YouTube Music wants to be totally personalized just for me, but sometimes I just want to go into a category like workout or Focus or Indie and choose a playlist that I want to listen to. You can't really do that here. Another tap of the app features trending music videos from YouTube. These are not necessarily personalized, which is fine.

But then another tap contains your library with all the music videos that you recently played, along with your downloads, your saved playlist, your albums, songs, and also the artists that you liked. And keep in mind, all this information is kind of shared with the YouTube regular site and

vice versa. So if you liked a musical artist on the regular YouTube site, that data transfers over to YouTube Music, and if you like an artist on YouTube music, it goes into the data on your YouTube page as well. A feature I really like is called the offline Mixtape. YouTube Music compiles an ever changing playlist of up to one hundred songs that it thinks you're gonna like. It puts this all into a playlist. Right now, I only

have twenty of them. I guess I haven't listened to enough music for it to give me one hundred, but that's all saved to your device. And this is really cool because it really saved me. The other day on the plane, I flipped my phone into airplane mode and realized that I had not downloaded any music from Spotify or apparently from YouTube music, so I had nothing to listen to except this little mixtape, which was great. And what's cool about the mixtape is that it spans all genres.

It's kind of like YouTube's best Guess at all the stuff you'll like, both old favorites mixed in with some new stuff. It's sort of like Spotify's Discover Weekly, but even more personalized. The other place YouTube music excels is in remixes and those live performances. Now it's pulling audio from what is still Google play Music, which is also confusing, and all the videos on YouTube, so you really get it all. If you want to listen to fifteen different

versions of a song, you pretty much can now. Search is also really smart on YouTube music. For instance, I just searched that new Ariana Grande song, and sure enough, No Tears Left to Cry came right up if I searched theme song from friends, it brings up I'll be there for you from the rembrants. Clearly, this is using Google Smarts in a really interesting way here. So bottom line, can YouTube Music replace your current music app? Probably not,

at least not right now. For starters, to get all the best features, you have to pay ten dollars a month, So if you don't, you won't get the downloads for offline listening, you won't get the mixtape or an ad free experience, and I get it all the other music apps. If you want to get the best experience, you have to pay, so I understand that, But unlike the other free music apps, with the free version of YouTube Music, you can't listen to music in the background with your

screen off unless you pay that monthly fee. That's a big downside. I also found that YouTube Music is not compatible with CarPlay right now, which most other music apps are. That means you can't use it as a one stop shop for all your music. What if you subscribe to this and now you want to listen to your car, you really can't use it with CarPlay. You'd have to

use the app outside of CarPlay, which is kind of weird. Overall, I'd say YouTube Music is super promising because they have all the data to surface the stuff that you like, plus a huge music catalog with stuff you can't find anywhere else. I just wish it was better organized, not as confusing, and work with more devices like Sonos and CarPlay. It does work with Google Assistant and Google Smart Speakers, so you do have that. And don't get me wrong, I'm not in love with Spotify, although I am a

subscriber of that service. I think they've built a product that works pretty well and it works everywhere. Although these days I've kind of been loving Apple Music more since it's really simple, it's really straightforward, and the music on their playlists seems to work for me. But something tells me YouTube music is not finished just yet, and it will be in all those places that I mentioned, and I think it will just continue to get smarter and smarter.

Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. If you like what I'm doing here, please rate and review it in the Apple podcast stapp. I'd appreciate that because that way more people discover it links to everything I talk about at richontech dot tv. I'm Rich damiro I'll talk to you real so