YouTube Music is getting an update that will make navigation easier and much better than before. Google, for a while now, has been promising to make changes, and it appears one of its latest features has started rolling out.
YouTube Music got itself a new library UI that makes it much easier to find specific songs or artists. Users won't have to scroll all the way down just to subscribe to the artist. Now, you can add albums or songs to your library and the artists will be added automatically to your list.
Before the update, the YouTube Music library was a mess -- the things you want most of the time, such as the artists and songs, were found at the very bottom. You have to deal with a scrollbar with recent items and then shortcuts to playlists, downloads, and others. If you add a song or album, the artist won't be added to your list, and you had to manually do it. Good thing that's all changing now.
The new update should be the start of a brand new YouTube Music. It's a good start, but we're still waiting for more personalized playlists. So far, the app only has New Release Mix, Discover Mix, and Your Mix. Your Mix is like Spotify's Daily Mix, but many agree that Google's take needs more work.
For one thing, Your Mix is as repetitive as it could get. Its biggest issue is that it seems to forget all the artists you've been listening to for the past week and floods you with music from the artist you listened to most recently. It literally ignores everything else you've Liked or listened to.
This is one of the reasons why most people still prefer Spotify, which has clearly perfected "listening" to your choices. YouTube Music probably needs a better AI so that it can handle all the artists you've listened to or Liked. It shouldn't just ignore everything about your listening history.
It's kind of surprising considering YouTube Music is practically owned by Google, the search giant itself, and a company that boasts its expertise in machine learning and algorithms. Unlike the search engine, YouTube Music, to put it bluntly, is kind of dumb when it comes to personalized playlists.
But hey, things aren't all bad. It's starting to change, though the roll-out seems to be happening, not all at once. Many still don't have the update, but users on Reddit have already uploaded screenshots of the new UI. that said, let's see how YouTube Music fairs in a couple of months.
