Photo Credit: YouTube
The YouTube Music ‘Explore’ tab is now available to mobile users on iOS and Android.
Google began experimenting with the Explore tab as a way to curate personalized recommendations. It looks much like Spotify’s start screen, with singles, playlists, and albums available. YouTube Music includes music videos listed by moods like ‘chill’ and ‘focus.’
The YouTube Music Explore tab update also includes its in-app song lyrics feature. The lyrics feature has been in beta for the better part of six months. Now YouTube Music will deliver static lyrics in the app whenever they are available. Google’s main lyric partner remains LyricFind, which recently got caught ‘red-handed‘ stealing written lyrics from Genius.
The moves come as Google tries to increase the YouTube Music app’s appeal to its Android users.
YouTube Music is now the focus for music delivery, with Google Play Music expected to get the ax this year. Last year, Google began a beta cloud upload feature for YouTube Music. That brings the most-requested GPM feature to its newest iteration of a music streaming app.
Google, as a whole, seems to know that the company’s strategy in multiple segments is fragmented. On the music front, it asked Android users to switch to Google Play Music for nearly six years. Now it hopes to retire that app in favor of YouTube Music. Accordingly, YouTube Music has replaced GPM as the default music player on Android devices. That alone has helped the app rocket to the top of the ‘most-downloaded’ apps charts.
If Google could stop re-inventing its major apps every five years, it may be more successful. As it stands, it looks like the YouTube name will help make YouTube Music successful. But it doesn’t help that YouTube Music Premium and YouTube Premium are two separate subscription services. YouTube Premium costs more and includes access to YouTube Music, yet another confusing point.