YouTube Music

If Spotify is the cool, curated vinyl shop, YouTube Music is the overflowing crate in your uncle’s attic, less polished, but full of stuff you forgot you loved.

At its core, YouTube Music is a standard streaming app: you tap a song, get suggestions, build playlists, and skip around mood-based mixes. It doesn’t look quite as sharp as Apple Music, or flow as naturally as Spotify. But it works. And it does one very specific thing better than anyone else, it has everything.

Not just the polished studio albums. We’re talking obscure remixes, fan-made mashups, unreleased tracks, concert bootlegs, game OSTs, and that random AMV you stumbled on in 2011. If someone uploaded it to YouTube, odds are you’ll find it here, and yes, you can throw it straight into a playlist. That alone is a dream for collectors and deep-cut lovers.

The recommendations? Solid. You’ll get autoplay “radio” stations, mood mixes, and personalized playlists like Discover Mix and Replay Mix. Over time, it learns what you like, though it’s not quite the sorcerer that Spotify’s Daylist or AI DJ can be. Still, I found myself stumbling across gems I didn’t know existed, especially once I tuned my preferences.

Audio quality, though? Eh. It tops out at 256kbps, fine for most ears, but audiophiles will side-eye the lack of hi-res support. That said, YouTube Music somehow sounds fuller in spots, especially on Bluetooth. It’s not lossless, but it’s listenable.

Where it gets really interesting is value. YouTube Premium includes Music, which makes it a no-brainer if you already pay to skip ads on YouTube videos. Why subscribe to two services when one gets you both?

There are hiccups. The interface can feel a little clunky, especially on mobile. Playlist editing is smoother on desktop. And if you want to find that one official version of a song, you might need to scroll past twenty lo-fi edits first.

But for the price, the catalog, and the quirks? YouTube Music is easy to like. Maybe not for everyone, but for the right kind of listener, it’s a goldmine that just keeps growing.