It's becoming less common for people to download and listen to music offline. Nowadays, more and more people prefer to stream music online. This is why online music streaming services like Spotify, Amazon Music, Tidal, and many more, are gaining popularity day by day.
According to data, music streaming revenue has surpassed $17 billion annually, which is 84% of the total music industry revenue. This shows that the music streaming industry is dominant.
People love music so much that they are willing to pay for it. Some of the big players in the music streaming industry are Spotify, Amazon Music, Tidal, and YouTube Music.
Spotify is the market leader with a 30% market share, but YouTube Music is gradually increasing its share. In this article, we will review YouTube Music Premium, compare it to Spotify, and find out if it is a suitable option for music lovers.
YouTube Music or YT Music is a music streaming service launched in 2015. It has free as well as premium versions available. As per data, it's currently available in 104 countries with a total market share of almost 9% with 100 million active users. It's available on platforms like Android, Android TV, iOS, WearOS, and Chrome.
Features
YT constantly offers new features to its users. the latest feature updates are a sleek and stylish equalizer graphic, a new sample shelf on the home screen that takes you to the sample tab and plays your selected videos, and genre-focused shelves based on your listening habits. These are some latest updates you will get on YouTube Music. let's see what are already added features on YT music that make your life happy.
- You can cast YT music to other apps and services whenever you require. You can also enjoy music on your Wear OS watch. every time you don't need your phone to enjoy music.
- YT Music introduces a feature called "Samples" that allows you to find short music videos. with the YouTube music sample, you can explore new music, save your favorite song to the library, find similar videos or you can go for full videos by going through a sample short video. You can also share that sample with your friends
- You can also search for your favorite song by typing a few words of its lyrics. you don't need to remember the exact song title.
- The most exciting feature you get with YT music is switching between music and video. YT music app has a song mode feature. if you have a network issue or slow internet you can play the same song in just audio format or if you want to watch the video of the same song, you can do that effortlessly.
- YT Music has a custom radio station feature. When you stream a song, the YT music app creates a radio station from it.
- YT Music Library has over 100 million songs. app uses a great algorithm. After signing up from your email address YT music streaming services know your music preference and show you suggestions according to your past activities.
YT Music Free Vs YT Music Premium
Some of you might be thinking whether these all features are free or do we need to pay? let me tell you that most of the features on YT music are free, but not all is free, when you need some extra, you have to pay some money, for example downloading the music offline was free but now this features are available in premium version. let's try to differentiate between YT music free and YT music premium.
- The first and the most significant difference between free YT music and Premium YT music is that YT premium gives an ad-free listening experience whereas the free version improves your listening and every time you need to skip ads.
- A second significant difference between the YT Music Premium and YT Music Free versions is that you can listen to your favourite music offline with the premium version. You can download and listen to them later with the premium version but the same isn't possible with free YT music.
- You can play your favorite music in the background while using other apps with YT Music Premium. this feature isn't available with free YT music.
- With the YT Music premium, you can activate audio-only mode without loading video of the same music or song which isn't possible in free YT music.
Pros
- massive music library
- video mode and audio-only modes are available
- offline downloading is available
- background music playing is possible while using other apps
- watching and listening to live performances is possible
- you can also use it for free with the free version (with limited features)
Cons
- low music streaming quality compared to other streaming services like Spotify
- limited podcast library compared to other apps
- the free version doesn't have many features like background play, downloading, offline listening, etc.
Music quality
If you are someone who values high-quality music, sound quality is a crucial factor for you. The free version of YouTube Music offers a sound quality of 48 kbps to 128 kbps.
However, if you opt for YouTube Music Premium, you get 48 kbps to 256 kbps sound quality with the audio codecs AAC and Opus. When it comes to comparing the audio quality of YouTube Music's free and premium versions with Spotify's free and premium versions, Spotify wins the race.
With Spotify, you get 320 kbps, while YouTube Music offers up to 256 kbps. For a casual listener, it may be difficult to spot the difference between 256 and 320 kbps. However, if you are an audiophile, you can sense the difference.
Conclusion
Eight years ago, YouTube music was launched and quickly gained over 100 million users. I am a big fan of YouTube music because of its extensive music library, which includes millions of songs in different languages, and its features.
It has both paid and free versions, and I recommend checking out the free version before upgrading to premium if it suits your needs. I find features like background music play, offline downloads, and switching between video and audio-only mode very useful.
The user interface is also simple and easy to use. However, when compared to some other streaming services like Spotify, YouTube music still has room for improvement. I was disappointed with the sound quality when I purchased the premium service, as it was only 256 kbps, which falls short of Spotify's 320 kbps.
Our next review will cover Spotify's music streaming service, and we will be able to declare the winner after a thorough comparison. Nonetheless, I would still recommend giving YouTube music a try as it offers a lot of options.