The redesigned YouTube Music radio experience lets you create totally personalized stations
You can select up to 30 artists when creating a station and add mood and use case filters.
Almost every music streaming service on the market offers a radio feature, allowing you to create an auto-generated playlist around a song or artist you like. For the most part, however, these features don't offer much flexibility. You choose a single song or artist and the platform takes care of the rest, just like Spotify and Apple Music.
Google has started rolling out a revamped radio feature to YouTube Music that the company says gives users significantly more control over their listening experience. Among the new features in the refreshed experience is the ability to choose up to 30 artists when creating your own radio station. You can also decide how often these artists repeat and apply filters that change the mood of the resulting playlist. For example, some of the selections include "chill", "downbeat", and "pump-up".
It is also possible to adjust the settings you set after creating a station by tapping on the “Tune” option that appears at the bottom of the interface once you are listening to your new playlist. Of course, you can save the station to watch it later. Once the new experience is available on your device, you will see a prompt in the main interface that says "Create a radio". As with many Google deployments, it may take some time before you see functionality on your tenant.
On its own, it's fair to say the feature won't be enough to convince some to ditch Spotify and Apple Music for YouTube Music, but if you're among the 50 million subscribers that Google says have access to the service, it may prompt you to use it more frequently or convert the free trial you got with your phone to a paid subscription.
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You can select up to 30 artists when creating a station and add mood and use case filters.
Almost every music streaming service on the market offers a radio feature, allowing you to create an auto-generated playlist around a song or artist you like. For the most part, however, these features don't offer much flexibility. You choose a single song or artist and the platform takes care of the rest, just like Spotify and Apple Music.
Google has started rolling out a revamped radio feature to YouTube Music that the company says gives users significantly more control over their listening experience. Among the new features in the refreshed experience is the ability to choose up to 30 artists when creating your own radio station. You can also decide how often these artists repeat and apply filters that change the mood of the resulting playlist. For example, some of the selections include "chill", "downbeat", and "pump-up".
It is also possible to adjust the settings you set after creating a station by tapping on the “Tune” option that appears at the bottom of the interface once you are listening to your new playlist. Of course, you can save the station to watch it later. Once the new experience is available on your device, you will see a prompt in the main interface that says "Create a radio". As with many Google deployments, it may take some time before you see functionality on your tenant.
On its own, it's fair to say the feature won't be enough to convince some to ditch Spotify and Apple Music for YouTube Music, but if you're among the 50 million subscribers that Google says have access to the service, it may prompt you to use it more frequently or convert the free trial you got with your phone to a paid subscription.
All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you purchase something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. All prices correct at time of publication.
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