Make the most out of the YouTube Music app with these latest features
Oct 24, 2023 – minute read
Each month, more than 2 billion people come to YouTube to listen to their favorite music.
Navigating the expansive landscape of great music has become a job within itself. With all of the amazing music out there right now, even the most passionate fans might find it difficult to connect with the sounds that speak to them and their unique taste. We want to change that. Each month, more than 2 billion people come to YouTube to listen to their favorite music. With the YouTube Music app, we’ve built a dedicated music streaming experience that delivers over 100 million official songs, along with an extensive catalog of live performances, music videos, remixes, podcasts, and hard-to-find music that you often can’t get anywhere else. We’ve taken all of that music content and created a personalized journey through sound that fits your particular music needs and preferences. We know that no two music journeys are the same, so we built this app with YOU in mind. Connecting the vast YouTube ecosystem, YouTube Premium subscribers also receive YouTube Music Premium, which allows you to consume ad-free, while taking all of your music with you, wherever you go, playing it offline or in the background.
This year, we’ve launched many new and exciting features on YouTube Music to help assist you with finding your next favorite song, personalize your own unique listening experience, and build a music community like none other. Most importantly, we want to make the music experience fun. Let’s dive in:
Discovery
At YouTube Music, we're all about delivering the latest and greatest in new music to our users as easily as possible! We're constantly looking to build features that will help guide you on your journey through the vast YouTube Music Library. Whether you're hunting down the latest bops from superstars like Doja Cat or SZA or digging into the classics from your favorite legacy artists such as Johnny Cash or Radiohead, we've got you covered. It's like having a musical adventure at your fingertips. Here’s how we’re making discovery that much easier:
Easily find and play your favorite music.
Behind the scenes, we’ve been redesigning parts of the YouTube Music app to help you easily find and play your favorite music. In the coming months, we’ll be launching a new feature on the Home tab that will help you quickly explore and listen to the songs and artists you’ve got on repeat. Simply open the YouTube Music app and right at the top of the Home tab, you’ll be greeted by your most listened to music content, making it easy for you to jump back into your current favorites.
Discover new music with a swipe.
This year, we introduced the Samples tab, a personalized feed of short form video segments to get you to your new favorite music. Each immersive clip offers a glimpse into the artist, the video, and the feel of the song. Users can simply swipe vertically to experience a new song, making music discovery fun and effortless. Find something you like? Quickly add the song to your collection, share it with friends, create your next favorite playlist, kick off a great new radio station, watch the full video, visit the album page, or even use the song to create your own Short. Swipe into your next music obsession in the Samples tab.
Personalization
Every music fan has a unique identity. It’s that one song that connects you to a core memory from your youth like revisiting Hüsker Dü’s live performance of “Candy Apple Grey.” And let’s not forget about those guilty pleasures you listen to when nobody’s around. The music you listen to speaks to your identity and we want to provide a personalized listening journey to reflect it. That's where the magic happens. Here’s how we’re personalizing the listening experience just for you:
Customize your listening session to be uniquely you.
YouTube Music makes it easy for you to get into a great listening session by surfacing pre-existing playlists, radios or albums via Home recommendations or Search results. This year, we made it even easier by launching a new radio experience that flips that model on its head. Empowering users to create their own radios from the ground up, this new feature allows you to combine key music building blocks to create the perfect radio station. After picking which artists to draw inspiration from you can tune your radio to suit your mood, level of discovery or familiarity of the songs, desired mood, and even if you’re looking for popular records versus deep cuts. Control your radio experience with a few quick clicks.
Make unique playlist art with help from AI
Starting today, we’ll begin rolling out a new experimental feature for English language US users on YouTube Music that creates customized playlist art using generative AI. The guided experience allows users to effortlessly explore from a range of visual themes and options to create one-of-a-kind cover art that expresses the uniqueness of your personal playlists. Struggling to find the perfect artwork for your 90’s R&B-inspired morning commute playlist? Don’t worry, we got you. Stay tuned for expansion to other regions and languages globally.
Community
YouTube Music’s unique combination of music videos, live performances, music premieres and short form videos, inspires real, devoted fandom. As users, you’re the heartbeat of our platform and we want to make sure that you’re able to connect, celebrate, and share the music that you love. We’re always looking for new ways to help our users share their favorites or a new discovery, build a more engaged community, and create a richer overall consumption experience. Here’s how we’re doing it:
Express yourself and connect with other music fans.
Recently, we introduced a new way to express yourself and connect with others through Comments in the YouTube Music app. With comments, you can make your voice heard by adding to the conversation around a new song, podcast or old favorite, while seeing what the broader community is saying by reading or reacting to their thoughts – all within the music app. These comments will mirror the same conversations happening on YouTube, allowing you to stay connected with music lovers across the YouTube ecosystem. Can’t hold back your excitement from the latest Cardi B and Megan the Stallion music video? Hop in the comments and join the conversation!
The only thing better than listening to your favorite songs is being able to follow along line-by-line to them.
Recently, we launched timed lyrics in YouTube Music, so now you and your friends can follow the words on-screen as you listen. If you’re looking for your favorite part of the song, you can tap on a specific lyric to jump to that part of the track. So now there’s no need to be the only one at the party that can’t remember the words to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Make YouTube Music part of your next karaoke experience!
Visit the YouTube Music app to check out these new features, and get ready for what’s coming next.