YouTube Music’s Spotify-esque Discover Mix now widely available

By Parker Hall and Simon Cohen December 18, 2019

In September, we discovered that YouTube Music was playing around with a not-so-subtle copy of Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist; called Discover Mix. Fast-forward to the present and it’s now clear that what might have started as an experiment is here to stay: YouTube Music has officially launched Discover Mix to all of its subscribers, along with two other algorithmically chosen playlists: New Release Mix and Your Mix.

Clearly, Discover Mix is intended to compete with Spotify’s popular Discover Weekly playlist, which uses algorithms to analyze listeners’ favorite genres of music, artists, and listening habits, and then recommend a new playlist of tunes each week. Discover Mix works much in the same way, using your listening history to suggest new tunes you might enjoy. YouTube says the goal is to “keep you up to date on what’s just been released and introduce you to a wider range of artists and sounds based on your personal taste.”

YouTube Music’s Discover Mix playlists feature 50 songs and are updated every Wednesday — as opposed to Discover Weekly’s Monday update cycle. There’s even better news for longtime subscribers: The more you have listened, the better the musical suggestions appear to be.

Its New Release Mix focuses on keeping you up to date on the latest releases from your favorite artists, and any others the algorithms think you’ll dig. Major updates will happen every Friday to coincide with when new releases are typically added, but there could be mid-week releases, too.

Finally, Your Mix — as the name suggests — is a mix of all your favorite artists and tracks, with some songs and artists you’ve never heard before just to keep things interesting. This one isn’t updated on a specific schedule but will still be adjusted regularly.

This isn’t the first time that YouTube Music has added a Spotify- or Apple Music-pioneered feature to its streaming service. In August, Google added the “Released” playlist, which is aimed to compete with Spotify’s New Music Friday and Apple Music’s New Music Daily.

The new playlists can be found within the home tab of the YouTube Music app for iOS or Android or on the web.

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Parker Hall is a writer and musician from Portland, OR. He is a graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Oberlin…

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