The streaming music field is packed with companies battling for your auditory attention. YouTube Music, an extension of Google’s entertainment arm, stands out from rival services by combining on-demand playback with hyper-focused playlists, search-by-lyrics functionality, official studio releases, community uploads, music videos, podcasts, and other entertaining features. It's an excellent mix, and one that elevates the service to earn an Editors' Choice award alongside LiveOne, SiriusXM Internet Radio, Spotify, and Tidal.
YouTube Music Plans
Google and its subsidiaries have a long, rich history of releasing new products that are similar to existing products (see Allo, Duo, Hangouts, and Messenger) and/or rebranding services to the point of confusion (see Google Apps for Your Domain, Google Apps for Works, G Suite, Docs, Sheets, and Slides, and Drive). That approach touches the company's music arm now that Google Play, YouTube Music Keys, and the original YouTube Red are no more. That said, YouTube Music is by far the company's most focused and complete music service to date, featuring more than 100 million official songs, plus millions of covers, performances, and other recordings. It's a truly comprehensive catalog.
(Credit: YouTube Music)You can fire up YouTube Music using a browser or mobile app. The service is free to use, with ads peppered between tracks. Sure, the ads aren’t ideal, but they’re generally short, and you can skip, replay, or scrub through as many tracks as you'd like during a listening session. That's impressive for a free service, considering that many others, including LiveOne and SiriusXM Internet Radio, limit your hourly song skips.
YouTube Music Premium's rates have increased across the board this year, with price points that mirror those seen in Spotify's recent subscription hike. A $10.99 per-month YouTube Music Premium subscription lets you eliminate pesky ads. You can download tracks for offline listening on mobile devices, too. A subscription offers what Google calls Smart Downloads, an auto-downloaded playlist based on your listening preferences. With it, YouTube Music automatically downloads frequently listened-to music (up to 500 tracks!), as well as similar tracks and playlists, making it a fantastic tool for music recommendations and offline listening. If you don't fancy this feature, you can deactivate it in the Settings menu.
In this regard, YouTube Music Premium stands up to the competition. Admittedly, the $10.99-per-month price tag is somewhat steep, considering you can get ad-free listening for cheaper elsewhere, such as LiveOne's $2.99-per-month (when billed annually) Plus plan.
Like Spotify, Tidal, and many other paid streaming music services, YouTube Music has a family plan. The option gives six people access to YouTube Music's catalog and premium features for $16.99 per month. It also offers a student discount of $5.49 per month. In addition, if you subscribe to YouTube Premium—the company's $13.99-per-month ad-free entertainment network—YouTube Music Premium is bundled as part of the package.
Data-Driven Recommendations
The YouTube Music homepage has three main sections: Home, Explore, and Library. Home is where you find recommended content (more on that later). Explore is where trending songs, live performances, and deep cuts live. Library contains your liked songs, favorite albums, listening history, and created playlists. We were happy to see our holiday playlist created on regular old YouTube carried over here, for example. The homepage is well designed, easy to navigate, and attractive, too.
(Credit: YouTube Music)YouTube Music leverages the mountains of data that Google has on its users to provide customized experiences—at least that's the goal. If you're in an airport, for example, YouTube Music should deliver relaxing tunes for the stressful flight experience. If you're at the gym, YouTube Music should feed you heart-pumping beats and riffs.
In our testing, YouTube Music detected the time of day and our location and served us the appropriate playlists. For example, in the early morning, it suggested listening to the energy-boosting "Classic Rock Party" and "'90s Hip Hop Party" playlists. During the evening, YouTube Music recommended several "Commute" playlists, with Rock, Hip-Hop, and Classic drive tunes. Weather even plays a role; YouTube Music Premium detected clear skies in New York City, which resulted in the "Feel Good Favorites" playlist. If you're okay with exchanging your personal data for customized playlists, it's a really slick, if somewhat sobering, experience.
Samples is another music discovery tool. This feature draws from your listening preferences and highlights 30-second, vertical video shorts of recommended tracks in a dedicated tab. From there, you can like, add to a playlist, share, or play the full song. You can also select Short to make a YouTube Short with said song. Navigating this tab is a cinch: You simply swipe up or down to move on to the next recommended track. Though curiously TikTok-like at a glance, Samples serves an entirely different purpose, and the additional recommendations are a welcome inclusion to the service.
Scrolling and Real-Time Lyrics in YouTube Music
YouTube Music has another cool gimmick: lyrics-based searches. You can type, "Took a test to become an MC and didn't fail," into the search box, hit the enter key, and see RUN-DMC's "Rock Box" accurately listed as a result. That said, that same search returned Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" for some inexplicable reason. Nonetheless, it’s a great little tool to use when all you know about a song are a few lyrics. YouTube Music also features lyrics for official music streams, which is a wonderful feature to use to sing along with, or figure out the dense verbiage in Snow’s “Informer.”
(Credit: YouTube Music)Lyrics are enhanced with real-time auto-scrolling functionality, similar to Spotify's Live Lyrics feature. This is a convenient karaoke-like element, though it still has a few kinks that must be ironed out. For instance, not all vocal tracks support real-time lyrics. In addition, the scrolling is slightly inconsistent, so the highlighted text is occasionally out of sync with the sung words. We hope to see this functionality improved in the future.
The YouTube Music Listening Experience
Of course, YouTube Music also recommends songs, albums, and playlists based on songs you've liked or listened to in the past. While researching The Offspring for a project, our YouTube Music feed was flooded with Korn, Limp Bizkit, and other suburban, aggro-rock tracks. The algorithm works, regardless of taste.
In terms of audio quality, the streamed music sounds good. Neither the YouTube Music app or the web version displays the audio-quality specifics, but a quick look at the service's Help page provides answers. Music tracks stream at Low, Normal, and High qualities, which carry 48Kbps AAC, 128Kbps AAC, and 256Kbps AAC bit rates, respectively. High quality is only available to Premium users. Naturally, the bit rate dips if you stream music over a weak connection. The average music listener with a decent pair of headphones will melt into a world of big beats, soft vibes, and hard rock. However, the service lacks hi-res audio. Audiophiles with more discerning ears may want to check out Amazon Music Unlimited, Apple Music, Qobuz, or Tidal for master-quality sound.
YouTube Music's listening options include podcasts, alongside music and comedy, which puts the service on par with competitors. Over the last few years, streaming music services have expanded to offer non-music content, such as news and weather updates (LiveOne), podcasts (Deezer, Spotify), editorial (Tidal), concert listings (iHeartRadio), or live radio streams (SiriusXM Internet Radio). YouTube Music also features collaborative playlists, so you can share and edit playlists with your friends, and vice versa. Hopefully, your friendship can endure the inevitable "Never Gonna Give You Up” additions to your favorite playlist.
YouTube Music Podcasts
Podcasts now have their own dedicated tab, which is long overdue considering you can find them on the video-focused YouTube. Selecting "Podcasts" brings you to a podcast page organized by category, and it features topics like Music, Political Commentary, Arts & Fiction, History, True Crime, and Religion & Spirituality.
(Credit: YouTube Music)You can rewind a show by 10 seconds, or skip ahead by 30 seconds. Additionally, you can save the episode for later listening, or add it to a playlist. In a nice touch, you can swap between audio or video versions of the show (if available), as you can with some music tracks.
Video Music Box
Naturally, YouTube Music has lots of video. If you search for, say, Flatbush Zombies, the results page will contain a dedicated video section where you can view official music videos, as well as content uploaded from the community. Most streaming music services only serve up official music videos, but YouTube Music gives you official content alongside karaoke tracks, people performing covers in their bedrooms, and other random uploads. If you like journeying down YouTube rabbit holes, you'll dig the lack of curation.
Still, we understand if someone dislikes this open-door approach to video content. If only official music videos will do, take a look at Tidal to sidestep the fluff and enjoy a robust selection of videos in its curated library.
YouTube Music Mobile Apps
Aside from the easily accessible browser-based version, YouTube Music is available on Android and iOS platforms. We spent a good amount of time experimenting with the iOS version on an iPhone 13 Pro Max.
The app is similar to the desktop version in that it has a simple, attractive, grid-based interface that places playlists front and center. With Music Premium, you can download playlists and let the app play in the background as you toy with other apps. The Explore section is a great way to see what’s new and hot in the music world, as well as enjoy live performances and deep cuts. Like the desktop version, the mobile app features official lyrics, so you can sing along with ease. We encountered no crashing or freezing during our many hours of listening.
(Credit: YouTube Music)YouTube Music Is a Top-Tier Streaming Music Service
YouTube Music's location- and time-based playlists, search-by-lyrics functionality, and lack of skip-throttling are all strong points in its favor. The service's gargantuan selection of tunes from film, video games, and the music industry as a whole, as well as podcasts and fan remixes, make exploration fun. If you like recommendation-heavy listening and don't mind a lack of hi-res audio, YouTube Music is well worth considering. It's an easy Editors' Choice award winner for streaming music services.