YouTube Music Streaming Service Coming May 22

On May 22, YouTube will introduce YouTube Music, a new streaming service made for music, including official songs, albums, playlists and artist radio, plus YouTube’s catalog of remixes, live performances, covers and videos.

YouTube Music includes a revamped mobile app and new desktop player designed for music. YouTube Music’s personalized home screen adapts to provide recommendations based on people’s listening history, where they are and what they’re doing.

The new ad-supported version of YouTube Music is free, while YouTube Music Premium, a paid membership offering background listening, downloads and an ad-free experience, is $9.99/month. Google Play Music subscribers get a YouTube Music Premium membership as part of their subscription each month, but will also still be able to access all of their purchased music, uploads and playlists in Google Play Music as normal.

YouTube has plans to launch YouTube Premium, the new name for their YouTube Red subscription service, which includes ad-free, background and offline across all of YouTube, as well as access to all YouTube Originals. YouTube Premium will continue to provide an ad-free experience, background play, and downloads across the millions of videos on YouTube. But because it includes the new YouTube Music service, the price will be $11.99 for all new members. Current YouTube Red (soon to be YouTube Premium) members can still enjoy the current price.

On May 22, the You:Tube Music experience will launch not only in the U.S., but in Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and South Korea, with plans to launch later in Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.