YouTube Music now using grid view for albums and singles on artist profiles

Abner Li | Jan 25 2021 - 5:11 pm PT

Almost a month into the new year, YouTube Music has yet to see any major changes. There have been a handful of tweaks, and the latest today involves YouTube Music switching to grid views when displaying albums and singles on artist profiles.

If a singer/band has enough albums and singles, YouTube Music displays a “See all” button instead of making users scroll through carousels on the artist page. This previously opened a standard list view.

Following a test last month, YouTube Music is now switching over to grid views that are somewhat reminiscent of Play Music. This has the benefit of showing much larger album art, but comes at the expense of information density on mobile. Most users can only browse six works at a time before having to scroll, while the name and album/EP label is listed below. The obvious solution for phones is giving users the option to switch between list and grid views.

This tweak works better on the web app where the extra width of a desktop/laptop screen proves quite useful in showing many more albums per page. It makes for a nice visual browsing experience that highlights the artwork. Tablets also benefit from today’s change.

As of today, this YouTube Music grid view for albums and singles is widely rolling out on Android, iOS, and web following a server-side update.