YouTube Music is getting some significant changes in its playlists that bring users even more into focus. Spotted in recent reports, the changes center around a new shelf in the primary UI called “Mixed for you.”
The name of the new shelf really says it all. While YouTube Music already does a great job of directing the listening experience, these are a bit different. The new playlists join a plethora of other playlist recommendations and suggestions from the Google-owned company but the intent here is more focused.
Summarily, the new mixes intend to reinforce established and introduce new music based on users’ selections.
What are the new playlist mixes?
The first of the new playlists that’s most likely to be used most often on YouTube Music, following the changes, is called Your Mix. That’s because it isn’t entirely comprised of new music so users aren’t necessarily as likely to skip through and ahead. Instead, Your Mix is made up mostly of songs by artists that users have liked on the platform — based on thumbs up icon presses.
That gets rotated through with minor changes on a regular basis to keep things fresh.
But it also contains one or two new things such as songs users don’t seem to have listened to by their favorite artists. New artists will periodically be thrown into the loop as well.
Beyond the new Your Mix playlist, there are some other new playlists on YouTube Music that are worth mention too. The first of those is Discover Mix, which is closer to the Your Mix playlist. Discover Mix updates on a weekly basis but gives out mostly new artists users haven’t said they listen too.
Periodically, a song from a loved artist will be played too. That gives users a chance to discover new favorites from artists they already like amid recommendations for something entirely new. 50 tracks are included for that and will be updated on a weekly basis, Wednesdays.
Finally, the New Release Mix cycles every Friday. More accurately, that new playlist cycles mid-week too so that new music that didn’t quite make the initial list are included. Based on favorite artists and recommendations, The name of this list says all that’s needed. It’s going to present new music to keep users up-to-date on what the newest tunes are that they’ll want to listen to.
The new YouTube Music playlists changes are available to you now, probably
As to when the new playlists become available, the changes are rolling out now globally. That points to a server-side change rather than an app update. Namely, the UI isn’t really being updated, just what’s presented to users in the existing UI. That also means that it may or may not take a few days before everybody sees the new playlists.
Once the playlists arrive, they are fully downloadable and loadable to a library. The changes are additionally platform-agnostic. So they’ll work on any platform whether that’s iOS, the web service, or on Android — backing up the notion that this is a server-side change.