Recently, I briefly felt like a technologically inept Boomer as I tried to play a song from a friend's phone while they were driving. As a millennial iPhone user, I fumbled with the Android interface, but the real issue was that I couldn't figure out why the song I was searching for wasn't on Spotify.
Turns out, I was searching just my friend's playlists, not the entire Spotify library, and I was quickly teased for not knowing how the world's largest music streaming service works.
The teasing isn't new to me. "Who doesn't have Spotify??" people sometimes ask when I take over the Bluetooth at a house party. "What, are you an Apple Music person?"
Nope, I'm actually even "weirder" and subscribe to YouTube Music. Most people I talk to don't even know the service exists, which is strange considering how many people use YouTube to listen to music.
The Google service hooked me several years ago when I started noticing just how good YouTube's algorithm was getting on my desktop. I'd search for an indie song like "New York, I Love You" by LCD Soundsystem, and the site would autoplay songs by Arcade Fire, The National, Father John Misty and more artists that fit that sound.
Switch the mood to funk, you'll hear more funk songs. Throw on some Billie Holiday? You'll probably get some jazz or swing next.
After a while, I started to see auto-generated playlists crafted specifically for me in the suggested-videos bar.
Once I was addicted, the service started playing an ad before nearly every video, which kinda ruins the mood of a perfectly curated playlist, ya know? A YouTube Music subscription would make that all go away, they sweetly whispered. So I bit.
Via the YouTube Music app, I can listen to almost any song you'd find on Spotify or Apple, plus I can download any music that's on YouTube as a video — say, a nearly two-hour festival set by one of my favorite EDM artists.
I can listen to that entire Alison Wonderland set as I switch between apps or put my phone screen to sleep (non subscribers can watch on YouTube for free, but the video has to be visible or it stops playing).
YouTube even curates by device and time. If I'm listening to music on my TV at night, when I'm more likely to have people over for drinks or a game night, there's a whole different subset of songs, videos and playlists that come up than when I listen on my phone at night.
When I wake up, I'm greeted with "my morning music" options. On Friday nights it knows I may want to get pumped up with dance music. As my mood changes from week to week and moment to moment, YouTube's crafting the personalized soundtrack to my life.
Probably the best feature is the ease of finding new music. My "Discover Mix" of 50 songs updates as I listen to different genres over time. A "New Release Mix" updates weekly and whenever artists I like release a new song.
Play a single song and the algorithm immediately creates a playlist sprinkled with similar artists I might like so I can find songs that, if not new, are at least new to me.
And that's how I found the song from the start of this story, "Peanut Butter Jelly" by Galantis, which I hope even some of you Spotify listeners can enjoy as you remain certain your music service is king. ♦
