YouTube Music is now aiming to help users fill out their playlists via curated suggestions and recommendations. That’s based on the discovery of new UI, located for some users just below the “Add a song” button. For clarity, that’s the feature denoted by a “plus”-shaped icon, typically found below the playlist itself.
Now, just below that, some users are reportedly seeing a list of seven songs beneath a “Suggestions” heading. None of those are songs that are already in the playlist and each is accompanied by an “add to playlist” icon to the right-hand side. There’s also a refresh button that will clear and repopulate the list. So users can choose to add one or two songs — or as many as they like. The entire list of recommendations doesn’t need to be added.
Will adding suggestions ruin the moods we set via YouTube Music playlists?
The addition of suggestions that can be quickly added to a playlist is bound to get on some nerves. Especially with consideration for several other complaints that YouTube Music has been facing down. To begin with, the service is all but ready to replace Google Play Music but, for some, that’s still the better service.
Not only did the migration over to YouTube Music actually break the UI for some. It also resulted in more than a few users being told they needed to purchase the right to play songs they’d already bought from Google. Or at least it does if users want to cast music to a smart speaker or television. That’s a premium service only feature with YouTube Music. And it doesn’t appear that’s going away anytime soon.
So there will undoubtedly be concerns over whether using the new playlists’ suggestions feature will ruin that feature for end-users. After all, it’s not out of the question that users will accidentally add songs that weren’t there before without necessarily noticing.
The suggestions are generated by the same YouTube Music algorithms behind the app’s mixtapes and should be firmly-related to music on the playlists in question. And it should be just as easy to remove any songs added accidentally. Additionally, users are still being given the option, to begin with. So it shouldn’t cause too much trouble.
When is this feature coming?
Regardless of personal feelings on the concept, this feature is hardly guaranteed. There’s been no indication as to when, or even if, this new feature will ever make its way out to a wider user base. So there’s a chance it won’t impact either those who love the idea or hate it. YouTube may choose to never release the feature to its music-focused app at all.