Steve Kelley
For Google Play Music aficionados, the writing’s been on the wall for a while: there wasn’t enough room in the Google universe for two music services. Now YouTube Music is Google’s only music service. Click on the Google Play Music icon from any Android device and you’ll see, “Google Play Music is no longer available,” with a button inviting you to “Explore YouTube Music.” Ask for a song on the Google Home Assistant, and you hear that it is now playing the song from YouTube Music. So if you live in the Google universe, it’s time to learn a bit more about YouTube Music.
The first thing to learn is that YouTube Music goes well beyond Google devices. You can download a YouTube Music app for Android and iOS devices, use the Web on Windows or Mac, and cast the music from these devices to a speaker or sound system connected to your Wi-Fi network. How’s that for options?
YouTube Music offers a free version and a premium version. The free version includes ads and has fewer features. Some of the biggest features missing on the free version are the ability to download music to play offline, customize playback, and listen in the background.. For YouTube Music Premium service, after a 30-day free trial you’ll pay $9.99 per month, which is coincidentally exactly what you’ll pay for Apple Music or Amazon Music.
For music service newbies, enjoying YouTube Music can be as simple as asking your Google Home Assistant, or other Android device, to play a particular song or genre of music. For example, "OK Google, play ‘Stairway to Heaven’ on YouTube Music,” or “Play classical music on YouTube Music.” The first will play the song by Led Zeppelin, the second will play a classical music station or playlist composed of various selections. If you are not a premium subscriber, you’ll just have to tolerate some ads here and there.
Need more features? The YouTube apps for iOS and Android and on the Web offer or customized playlists, recommendations, downloading, latest music, favorites, and streaming radio stations based on your favorite artists, and a dizzying array of other options. The apps are free, just download them, enter your Google credentials, and start a free trial for the premium service if you’re eligible and want to check it out.
The apps and Web interface have four main areas from which to get started: Home, Explore, Library, and Search. The first three appear as tabs at the bottom of the apps, and at the top on the Web. Search is on the top of the screen in both.
A Quick Search
Search seems the quickest way into the app. Enter the name of a band or song and you'll get a list of results. A set of filters is available to refine the search, including: Songs, Videos, Playlists, Albums, and Artists. Each one of the filters returns a list of items: songs, videos, etc., with brief details, and a menu for that listing. Selecting the item opens the player and begins playing the selection with controls for playback. Selected songs are immediately put into a playlist, so on either side of the Play/Pause button an option to skip to the next song or go back to a previous song appears. Other menu items here included: Share, Download, Add to Playlist, and Radio. Premium subscribers can download music to play offline for up to 30 days. On the Android app, TalkBack identified all the objects on the music player by swiping through from top to bottom with the exception of the slider below the video player. Once in focus, an up or down swipe, or the volume buttons, will adjust the time forward or backward in the song on the slider.
Three tabs appear at the bottom of the player screen: Up Next, Lyrics, and Related. Up Next lists the next selections in the playlist YouTube created for you, presumably based on your past choices, as does Related. For my selection of “Stairway to Heaven,” for example, the related tab suggested Marvin Gaye’s “Got To Give It Up,” and Seal’s, “Stand By Me,” so I am still curious what algorithm provided those related items! The Lyrics tab here is a really great, handy feature. Not all songs have lyrics available, though nearly all the selections I used for the review did.
The Home Tab
At first the Home screen appears to be a lot of mixes and features that have nothing to do with you or your musical preferences. After making a few selections, however, the Home screen becomes a really handy place to quickly listen to some music that matches what you like. At the top of the Home page is a feature called Mixed for You, which includes several playlist mixes that match preferences you’ve made in the past. Below this is Quick Picks, described as a radio station based on a song. It is not clear how this differs from Mixed For You, except that this playlist or radio station begins by selecting a specific song based on your previous preferences.
Continuing down the Home screen, New Releases, provides suggestions for new songs and artists, again based on previous selections. During the review, this included a limited selection, and while the first couple recommendations seemed good matches, the last several were misses. Recommended Music Videos, appeared next, with 10 recommendations that were a much better match for preferences than the previous New Releases.
There were a number of additional categories following this, including Reissue Roundup, Today’s Biggest Hits, Live Performances, and Feel Good Favorites.. If you love music and want to keep up with the latest releases, this is a great section to drill down into. One of the great features here was the ability to just select and listen to a complete album whenever it was one of the recommendations. Additionally, each selection included a menu offering options to rate the selection with a thumbs up or down, change the quality of music, or select audio only for lower bandwidth situations, download the selection for premium subscribers, add the song to a playlist, share the song, and more. These menu features really provide the options to customize both your selections, playlists, and recommendations.
Explore Tab
While there is plenty to explore from the Home screen, the Explore screen puts a slightly different spin on the selections, with less focus on user preferences and more on new music. Sections here included: New Releases, Charts, Moods and Genres, New Albums & Singles, and Top Songs. Digging into any one of these sections offered more about what was trending more generally, rather than the focused offerings in the Home screen.
Library Tab
Library contains collections of music selected while using the other features of YouTube Music. Playlists are stored here, along with songs you've recently listened to, and music, albums, songs, or artists that you downloaded. The Subscription feature here is a great way to search for channels or specific artists. Once subscribed, the artist channel provides a great deal of information about the latest albums, songs, videos, features, playlists, and more. For the user with several favorite artists, this is another great way to get started with YouTube Music—search for several favorite artists, subscribe to their channels, and save a couple of the playlists for these artists in the Library.
Wrapping It Back Up
For this newcomer to YouTube Music, the number of features and the Home, Explore, and Library screens packed with options seemed a bit overwhelming. For the music listener familiar with other apps like iTunes, this will all be second nature. A quick tutorial like Josh Teder’s, “How to use YouTube Music” will help sort out all the features and where to find them. This tutorial moves quickly and doesn’t address screen reader users, but was still useful for sorting it all out.
Both Android and iOS apps worked well with TalkBack and VoiceOver. Of particular note was the ability to shuffle music in the various playlists using a double-tap-and-drag gesture, a feature that didn’t work on the YouTube TV app reviewed last month. For anyone with inconsistent internet access, the download feature on the premium service will be a really great feature, and will guarantee you have the music you want regardless of internet connectivity. Perhaps the best part of YouTube Music is that you can try the free version as long as you want to see if it works for you and your entertainment devices, and you can check out the YouTube Music Premium for 30 days at no cost.
This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.
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