Youtube Music—Is it worth the switch?

If you’ve heard of Youtube Premium, then you’ve probably heard of Youtube music too. I personally am practically dependent on Spotify to serve up my tunes whether I’m at the office working, travelling, working out, or sleeping. I literally have playlists (that I used to curate individually) for different moods, activities, genres, and so on.  And so when Google’s own music streaming service, Youtube music was launched in the country, I was excited to check it out and see what it can offer.

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Initially, my idea of the whole application was that it can let you listen to Youtube in the background. You know, when you’re on your phone and just want to turn your screen off or go about other tasks without staying stuck on that screen unable to do anything else? And I know, there are solutions to that like using another device to play your tunes or using split screen (these were what I used to do, at least).  But, music streaming/playing apps were created for a purpose and that is to play music in the background. There’s a catch though, background play is only for premium users.

Basically, free users can search and find whatever songs they want and access official songs and albums. Premium users, on the other hand, get these plus the everything is ad-free, you get background play, and you can save music offline.

App look and interface

The app itself is pretty straightforward, when you first sign up, it asks you to pick 5-10 of your favorite artists from this list of different artists across different genres and eras. It’s kind of random (I say ‘kind of’ because knowing Google, it probably already knows which ones I’m more likely to pick or rather, which ones I’d definitely pick.). So, I picked away (I’m a huge Taylor Swift fan, by the way, and that’s what I probably search the most on Youtube/Google) but surprisingly the algorithm didn’t suggest T-Swift. You can always add to the list from your settings afterwards, too. It has minimal menu items, with a home tab, a hotlist, and your music library.

The home screen is a mix of songs and music videos from the artists you’ve ‘liked’ as well as suggestions based on the ones you picked. There are recommended playlists and personalized mixes, too. As I’ve said earlier, I’m used to Spotify, and I really love their ‘browse’ menu where you get to window shop the music you like from different playlists. Youtube Music takes a different approach, and uses your posted preferences, location, and activity to come up with suggested music, videos, and playlists. If you’re looking for a specific mood or mix, you’d have to search for but it doesn’t offer grouped playlists. This is definitely an interesting feature, but it didn’t work as well as it’s probably designed to do for me as I normally pre-pick my music and don’t use data to stream music, so I don’t get personalized music suggestions when I’m out. It does have an offline mixtape feature, which smart downloads up to 100 tracks that are personalized for you by the app.

After the home page, a hotlist tab features top music videos that you can watch. And you can find your downloads, bookmarked playlists and albums, liked songs, and followed artists.  

You can use it on up to 10 devices and it also has a desktop version on music.google.com but no separate app. There are no offline downloads here even for premium users either.

The Music

Aside from official albums and songs, you get access to Youtube videos as well, which is a great place to listen to original music and covers from Youtubers who don’t have their music up online for purchase/streaming yet. It’s an immerse experience because you also get to choose between just audio or have the music video play as well.  

YT music also gets better with its suggestions and mixtapes the more you interact with it and it will slowly learn what you like.

Our Opinion:

Youtube Music on premium is great. It lets you access official artist albums and music along with the entire Youtube Library that you can play in the background, ad-free, and download offline—all for P129/month. But If you’re not planning to subscribe to premium, it’s quite a bummer because you don’t even get background play, among other limitations. Other streaming apps might be a better pick for the same price.