YouTube Music gets playlist tips from Spotify & Apple Music

Alphabet’s music strategy has lacked focus in the past.

But that seems to be changing with YouTube Music now getting tips from the likes of Spotify and Apple Music as it moves away from Google Play Music.

It’s launching three new personalised playlists – Discover Mix, New Release Mix and Your Mix – all to be available in Australia as part of a global roll-out this month.

This was announced by YouTube chief product officer Neal Mohan in an onstage interview at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2019.

Discover Mix, which will open up new acts as well as little known tracks from known artists, has appeared in recent weeks but in a low profile way.

New Release Mix, like Spotify’s Your Release Radar, highlights recent drops from well-known artists.

Your Mix offers new and known tracks based on the user’s past listening habits.

Mohan said, “Our YouTube Music app has been out now for a couple of years, we’ve launched the YouTube Premium service and the app and now 71 different countries.

“As we’ve rolled it out, we’ve gotten lots of feedback from our users about what they’d love to see.

"One of the things that they tell us repeatedly is, they love the fact that, through a combination of things like machine learning and human beings that are music lovers, we put all this great music in front of our users in the YouTube Music app.”

The three new playlists will be updated weekly.