YouTube Music launching on 22nd May!

Previously codenamed ‘Remix’, YouTube announced a new music subscription service today and confirmed that it would be launched in five markets next Tuesday (May 22nd) in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and South Korea. YouTube Music will also “soon” be launching in Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, said YouTube. India will have to wait for a while. The audio-visual platform is the relaunch of the YouTube Music brand, as an app and desktop player that will offer “streaming service made for music with the magic of YouTube”. The YouTube advantage is that it will combine all the official versions of songs with access to “thousands” of related playlists, remixes, covers, live versions, and of course, music videos. It seems that YouTube Music will tap the wonders of natural language processing (NLP) to let you find music based on a vague description. So if you remember the sound of a song but can’t remember it, you can type in something like “hipster song with the whistling” or even a few lines from the song. The app’s home screen will also dynamically recommend new listening based on your history, location, and activity. Google is emphasising its diversity of playlists, too, which will also be used to suggest and surface new music for the user. With so many people hitting YouTube for their music fix, Google has always felt well placed to attract people to a subscription-based music service. However, up to now, the company has failed to nail it. It kicked off with Google Play Music in 2011, but its performance has been disappointing in comparison to rival services such as Spotify and Apple Music. In 2014, it followed up with Music Key, offering subscribers ad-free music videos, but a lack of interest saw Music Key succeeded by YouTube Red in 2015. With the coming rollout, the company will dive deeper into space already populated with other heavyweight players. Earlier this year, Spotify went public, while for Apple, music has become a significant contributor to its essential services segment. It will be available as both an ad-supported free tier and a $9.99-per-month package called YouTube Music Premium. Anyone who already has a Google Play Music subscription gets YouTube Music as part of that membership. Play Music isn’t going away yet, though it’s hard to see what future purpose there will be to Google sustaining two services and apps that overlap to quite such a degree.

[If] you use Google Play Music, — you’ll still be able to access all of your purchased music, uploads and playlists in Google Play Music just like always. - Elias Roman, Product Manager , YouTube Music, in a blog post.

It all ties up together after yesterday’s other big YouTube announcement. The company revealed that it is now using Content ID data to display full music credits below videos automatically and will also link to the official videos on YouTube Red. While this opens the door for Google to promote better and cross-sell its services, it’s also designed to appease record labels, publishers, and rightsholders and wants to demonstrate that it’s serious about crediting original music creators and owners.

“YouTube is committed to providing recognition to all of the people who contribute to the creative process, and this is just the beginning,” the company said. “Through our industry partnerships, we will expand the scope and quality of data to ensure all creators are credited as completely and accurately as possible.”

These announcements are significant for the music industry, and we cannot wait for it to make way towards India, where music streaming helped music revenues grow 27% in 2017.