I've briefly mentioned my love for YouTube Red's new subscription service in my previous editorial discussing some of my favorite Boss Battle themes. For $10 a month, not only can I watch YouTube videos ad-free, which is certainly delightful, I can now also keep my phone on standby, while still listening to videos. That means if I have my Rhythm Heaven Fever playlist on, I can slide my phone into my pocket and keep on jamming out to Air Rally and Ring Side. Bliss.
YouTube Music takes this a step further. This app is centered around music videos uploaded to YouTube. While this app doesn't let me load up my own playlist, it does two things very well. First and foremost, it has a switch at the top which changes the mode from visual to audio. That means I can have it set to visual if I want to actually watch the videos associated to each song, or switch it over to audio which turns off the video completely, simply playing the song. Talk about data-saver.
The other cool feature is its endless playlist that's tailored to your personal tastes. It works in a variety of ways. One of them is like Spotify, the more videos you like and dislike, the better curated your list will be with music you actually like. However, let's say you really just want to listen to Xenoblade Chronicles music. Simply type that in at the top, and then go to the music settings and set your variety to Less. That means it will mostly focus on Xenoblade music, and occasionally songs from other, similar sounding video games. It's truly brilliant.
I was wary of YouTube's subscription plan at first, but seeing the benefits first hand with things like Background Play, and the new YouTube Music app, the $10 is basically paying for itself. Not to mention, you also get access to Google Music within the same subcription.
The only thing I'm waiting for now are family plans. My wife is very jealous of my YouTube Red benefits, but doesn't want to add another subscription fee on top of mine.
The app is currently available for Android and iOS devices. Sorry Windows Phone users.
