YouTube app promoting new YouTube Music song recommendations

Abner Li | Oct 3 2019 - 9:54 pm PT

Last month, we spotted the YouTube for Android offering to open YouTube Music when playing songs. A new cross-service integration sees the YouTube app recommend new songs from the Music service.

When this occurs, the top of YouTube’s Home feed features a banner announcing a “New single for you from [band].” Foals — in this case — is a band I have listened to in the past and am vaguely interested in, but not subscribed to.

YouTube Music branding appears just above the message, while the background is identical to the one that appears on the service’s artist page. This YouTube app Music promo is quite large, and about the size of other video recommendations.

There is an overflow menu in the top-right corner, with a tap opening the song in the YouTube Music app. Notably, the song — not the video — loads and plays. Your feed continues underneath with the “Music app” and “Originals” shortcut pushed below the YouTube Music promo.

For Google, this is one prominent way to boost YouTube Music adoption from the very popular main client. The previous example last month encouraged subscribers to take advantage of their Premium or included Music Premium membership. It exposed users to the more dedicated audio playback experience even if most are quite content with listening to songs in the YouTube app.