YouTube Music

YouTube Music is Google's music streaming service, launched in its current form in 2018 as a replacement for Google Play Music (which shut down in 2020). YouTube Music uniquely bridges official studio recordings with YouTube's massive unofficial catalog — fan uploads, live concerts, covers, remixes, and rare recordings that no other streaming service can match. This makes YouTube Music the best platform for discovering rare or live versions of songs unavailable elsewhere. The service offers a free ad-supported tier and YouTube Music Premium at $10.99/month (or $13.99/month for YouTube Premium, which also removes ads from all of YouTube). YouTube Music Premium allows background play on mobile, offline downloads, and ad-free listening across the entire catalog. The catalog spans 100 million+ songs plus the entirety of YouTube's music video library. Google integrates YouTube Music deeply with Android — it's the default music app on many Android devices and Pixel phones. Discovery features include Mixes generated from listening history and an Explore tab surfacing trends. The service has grown to approximately 100 million subscribers (shared with YouTube Premium). For YouTube heavy users, bundling Music Premium into YouTube Premium is excellent value.