YouTube is growing into a mansion with many distinct rooms. The latest is YouTube Music, which seeks to capitalize on the video site’s massive music catalogue and convince more subscribers to jump on board YouTube Red.
YouTube Music is free and grants you a focused application for discovering music videos, exploring YouTube’s recommendations, viewing your previous favorites, and streaming audio.
If you sign up for the $10-per-month subscription, you get ad-free access to the entire catalog of videos and the ability to save them offline. The YouTube Red package also applies to YouTube’s other apps and grants you unlimited streaming with Google Play Music.
YouTube Music follows Google’s Material Design aesthetic, so it’s a consistent experience across iOS and Android.
The new app is a focused hub for YouTube’s video catalog, something that’s been missing for a while. Along with the sections dedicated to watching or listening to previous music selections, there’s a “mixtape” option that lets you pick 20 audio tracks to save to your device.
There’s also a toggle to switch the app into Audio Mode if you’re planning to just listen to some tracks instead of watch the videos.
Google says once you download the app, you’ll get 14 days of YouTube Red perks before you’re bugged about subscribing. You can check out YouTube Music now from the App Store and Google Play.
The story behind the story: YouTube may have finally found a way to take advantage of its major vault of music videos. Until now, that content has been cluttered amidst all the cat videos and other amateur nonsense that fills up YouTube’s servers. If YouTube Music turns into a bigger hit, you have to wonder if Play Music might one day get swallowed up into the service. YouTube is the much bigger brand, and it may hold more value for those who are fans of Spotify or other services.