YouTube Music is a music streaming service developed by YouTube; it provides a tailored interface for the service oriented towards music streaming, allowing users to browse through songs and music videos on YouTube based on genres, playlists, and recommendations. The service also offers a premium tier, which enables ad-free playback, audio-only background playback, and downloading songs for offline playback. These subscription benefits are also offered to subscribers of Google Play Music and YouTube Premium. The service will eventually supplant Google Play Music as Google's main brand for music streaming and purchase.
History
The YouTube Music app was unveiled in October 2015 and released the following month; its release came alongside the unveiling of YouTube Red, a larger subscription service that covers the entirety of the YouTube platform, including the Music app. Although redundant to Google's existing Google Play Music All Access subscription service, the app is designed for users who primarily consume music through YouTube. On May 17, 2018, YouTube announced a new version of the YouTube Music service, including a web-based desktop player and redesigned mobile app, more dynamic recommendations based on various factors, and use of Google artificial intelligence technology to search songs based on lyrics and descriptions. In addition, YouTube Music became a separate subscription service, offering ad-free and background/audio-only streaming, and downloading for offline playback, for music content on YouTube. The service's benefits will continue to be available as part of the existing YouTube Premium service, and to Google Play Music All Access subscribers. The YouTube Music subscription is priced in line with its competitors at US$9.99 per-month; the price of YouTube Premium was concurrently increased to $11.99 for new subscribers. In 2018, YouTube Music reached multiple sponsorship agreements with Dick Clark Productions to serve as a partner for its television specialsDick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve and the American Music Awards. YouTube Music became available on Google Assistantsmart speakers on April 18, 2019, with feature-limited ad-supported playback available for non-subscribers.
Features
The availability of music includes many of the releases from mainstream artists and extends to any video categorized as music on the YouTube service. YouTube Music will initially operate in parallel with Google Play Music, but product manager Elias Roman stated that Google Play Music users will eventually be migrated to the app after it reaches feature parity with Google Play Music. YouTube Music product manager T. Jay Fowler stated that collections, playlists and preferences would be migrated. Beginning in September 2019, Google Play Music is replaced by YouTube Music in the coreGoogle mobile services bundle distributed on new Android devices. In May 2020, an update was released to allow imports from Google Play Music, including purchased music, playlists, cloud libraries, and recommendations. On May 25, 2020, YouTube Music lets users pre-save albums before they are released.
Subscriptions
The free tier usually plays songs in its versions of music video where applicable. The premium tier plays official tracks of the album, unless the user searches for the music video version. YouTube Music Premium subscribers are able to switch to an audio-only mode that can play in the background while the application is not in use. The free tier does not allow audio-only mode with background playback as it displays video advertisements.
The Premium and YouTube Premium plans are available in individual and family variants. A family plan allows up to six family members from the same household to access plan features. Eligible students can obtain a discount on an individual plan.
Geographic availability
The service is available in 95 countries: American Samoa, Argentina, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bermuda, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Germany, Greece, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Moldova, Malta, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Norway, Northern Mariana Islands, Oman, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, Turks and Caicos Islands, Thailand, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, United States Virgin Islands, Uruguay and Venezuela.
