it's been over six months since i started using youtube music as my default music service now
we've already gone over on the channel how to use youtube music as well as compare it to music
streaming services like Spotify so in this video i'm going to take you through what it's been like
to use the service my critiques of it the top features some of the issues and downsides that
we've run into while using it and then ultimately i'll give you my recommendation on whether or not
you should use youtube music so let's dive in and first up let's talk about the music available on
youtube music this service just has a huge catalog of music thanks to its ability to leverage music
uploaded directly to youtube this is especially important if you like to listen to artists who
aren't as much in the mainstream or depending on what country you're listening from you might find
more of your local artists on youtube music than on rival streaming services
now i listen to mostly mainstream music so think Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga, The Weekend,
Ben Platt etc. So for someone in my use case i've had no issues at all finding the music that i want
to listen to on the service however let's say you've downloaded music or you own other music
that you just can't find on youtube music well thankfully youtube music has a feature that allows
you to upload your own music to the surface you simply drag your music files to any surface on
music.youtube.com from a computer or you can click on your profile picture on youtube music
and select upload music from the menu music formats that are accepted include FLAC M4A MP3 OGG
and WMA you can upload up to a hundred thousand songs to your youtube music library and you can
play uploaded songs in the background ad free and offline even if you don't currently subscribe to
youtube music premium youtube music premium for me is a must when it comes to youtube music now i've
long been sold on the benefits of music streaming services with the amount of new music i listen to
per month versus the old way of having to pay per song a streaming service just makes a lot more
sense with youtube music premium you get an ad free experience the ability to listen to music in
the background on your device and you can download music onto various devices youtube music can also
automatically download your most listened to music so you have it on your device while on the go
and it'll even create a downloaded mixtape for you automatically which i use quite a bit when driving
out in the country with poor cell reception now for me the best part about youtube music premium
is that it's included in youtube premium youtube subscription service that gets rid
of ads on youtube allows you to play youtube videos in the background on your devices
and lets you download youtube videos for offline viewing perfect for when you're traveling so for
two dollars more a month at 11.99 us dollars you get youtube music premium included with a
youtube premium subscription it's one of the most underrated deals in tech right now and is a strong
incentive that originally got me to subscribe to YouTube music now while youtube premium is a great
deal and all YouTube music actually needs to be somewhat competitive against services like Spotify
in order for me to keep subscribing and in general while it doesn't have everything that Spotify has
it has enough to keep me subscribed mainly with its algorithms and auto-generated playlists the
YouTube music algorithm is quite good i mainly use Siri and the google assistant to control
YouTube music and when i tell either assistant to play some specific music on YouTube music
i find that YouTube music does a good job at playing a mix of music that i like to listen to
have been listening to recently as well as new songs and artists that match some of the
things i already like which is the predominant way i've discovered new things to listen to
on the service even when you play a new song you've never heard before
after that song ends YouTube music does a good job of mixing similar types of songs to play
in the up next section the ui of YouTube music for the most part i think is pretty well designed
it's easy to navigate and one thing i really like are the quick picks sections scattered throughout
the ui when you select a quick pick it'll kick off an auto-generated playlist based off the song you
selected and it's something i've used more and more over the past 6 months it's just a really
great way to start playing music and it's easy to select a song for a vibe that you may want to feel
in a particular moment the ui when you select a song to play is also quite nice i especially
love what they did with the iPad app highlighting the album artwork in a large part of the left hand
side of the screen with music controls underneath and the up next section on the right it makes
it easy to see what YouTube music is planning to play next and it's incredibly easy to drag
the tracks around to change their order if you don't want a song to play in the up next playlist
you just swipe it to the left to remove it and while your music is playing in the background
if you find another track in YouTube music you want to play next all you have to do is click
the three dots next to that song and select play next and boom that song will play next another
thing i really like about YouTube music's ui is the thumbs up and thumbs down feature it's a ui
element borrowed directly from YouTube and i think it's universal and a simple way to say whether or
not you like or dislike a particular song when you give a song a thumbs up it will automatically be
added to your thumbs up playlist and YouTube will notice that you like the song and will try and
play more songs like it playlists are another area of YouTube music that have improved significantly
since i started using the service one of the things that i think gives Spotify an advantage
over YouTube music in our original comparison video between the two was Spotify's auto-generated
playlists for different listening modes based on various artists that you'd like to listen to well
now YouTube music has implemented the exact same concept called personalized mixes and i've seen
up to six or seven mixes in my library that are updated regularly based on my listening groups
having these for me at least made switching back to Spotify less enticing they're especially great
if you have a specific mood of music that you want to listen to YouTube music has also added
more playlists in other areas like a top charts playlist in the explore section of the app
which shows you the current position of songs as well as if they're trending up
or down on the charts playlists are also really easy to share with friends and family it's just
as easy as sharing a YouTube video or YouTube playlist there's also now a 20 20 year in review
playlist for me highlighting my most listened to songs of the year another thing i love about
YouTube music is how well it's integrated with the google assistant it works well with
google's own first party speakers and soon will have just as good of an integration with siri
on the iPhone allowing you to finally set it as the default music service siri will play from
though it's unclear whether that'll also apply to apple's HomePod speakers as well the google
assistant with its YouTube music integration is also smart enough to be able to recognize a song
just based off part of that song's lyric perfect for scenarios where you don't know the name of
a song so here's an example play i'm doing good i'm on some new by Taylor Swift sure the one from
YouTube music playing in josh's bedroom speakers another great google assistant integration with
YouTube music though not exclusive to YouTube music is when you play a song through YouTube
music on a google assistant speaker and you want to give it a thumbs up like you would in
the app well to do that all you have to do is tell the google assistant hey i like this song
all right i noted that you like this and now that song has been given
a thumbs up alright so those are all the things that i like about YouTube
music that have made an impact on me while i've used this service
over the past six months but now let's take a look at some of the downsides of using YouTube music
the first downside for a certain part of the population out there is unlike with google play
music you can't purchase music through YouTube music now it's clear that the industry is moving
on from the paper song model and personally i have no interest in ever purchasing music again however
that doesn't mean that there still isn't a small audience out there that was used to
purchasing music through google play music that is going to feel let down by YouTube music's
lack of this feature the next downside is even if you select the toggle on YouTube music settings
not to allow music video versions of songs to play on occasion the service will still do just
that which is kind of annoying next the desktop app which isn't a native app like Spotify's but
a chrome app and that's kind of let down with certain features like casting music you have to
click the three dots at the top of the app to cast and the experience just isn't as well polished as
the mobile version of the app you can't control speaker group volume with assistant displays
another downside i found is when i was cleaning up my library and trying to remove a bunch of albums
that i didn't want anymore that were from my high school years there's no way to bulk delete uploads
you have to go in and one by one delete albums which depending on how large your music catalog is
can be tedious the last downside to cover is music playback quality this is a bummer
especially for fans of high quality music because YouTube music streaming quality is slightly lower
than Spotify's at 256 kilobytes per second AAC and it's way lower than the quality you can
stream with amazon music unlimited or tidal which both have tracks that are cd quality and above
generally in blind tests where i play 10 tracks from YouTube music and amazon music unlimited in
their hd form and mix them all up so i don't know which track i'm listening to is from which service
i cannot tell a difference between the YouTube music version of a track and the amazon music
unlimited version of a check generally like i just completely guess wrong almost all of the time
sometimes the YouTube music version sounds better and i think that one's the higher quality one and
it's not with YouTube music sound quality i am a bit torn because obviously based on my own blind
tests the YouTube music quality is fine for me and i don't think a lot of other people are going to
be able to notice a difference either though at the same time i'd still like to see YouTube music
match what amazon and title are doing because i simply don't like the feeling that the music
we're all listening to is technically still worse than cd quality alright so those are all of my
thoughts on the downsides to using YouTube music now let's talk recommendations do i recommend
using YouTube music yes i think there's enough there to satisfy all types of music listeners
i've been pretty happy with the design of the app there's not too much clutter the algorithms and
auto-generated playlists are good and i think the YouTube premium subscription makes YouTube
music really compelling that's definitely one of the main reasons i'm sticking with it
YouTube music premium costs 9.99 per month here in the u.s and for two dollars a month more you can
get YouTube premium both services offer special pricing for students and families so definitely
check out the YouTube website as well as YouTube music's website to learn more i hope you found
this video helpful and informative and if you did and liked it make sure you hit that thumbs
up button below and subscribe to the channel to see more six months later reviews like this one
well that's gonna do it for me for 6 Months Later, I'm Josh Teder, thanks for watching.