YouTube Music officially launches ‘Create a radio’ on Android and iOS

Abner Li | Feb 21 2023 - 9:56 am PT

YouTube Music today officially announced its “Create a radio” feature after it widely rolled out earlier this month on Android and iOS.

Previously, YouTube Music would create a radio when you select a single song from pretty much anywhere in the app. The station would start after the current track ends, with Up Next noting what’s queued. You’d also have the ability to save that radio as a regular playlist.

Create a radio lets you build stations “from the ground up, by combining key music building blocks such as artists and common music descriptors to whether the user wants songs that are new discoveries, or chill songs, for example.” This feature was first spotted in testing at the end of last year.

From the Home feed, scroll until you find the “Create a radio” card that’s labeled as “Your Music Tuner.” You are then presented with an endless grid of artists, with the ability to pick up to 30. Afterward, you determine whether the “Song selection” — or “frequency of those artists” — should be: Familiar, Blend, or Discover.

…do they want the radio to only be the artists they’ve selected, or a much broader set of similar artists as well.

Lastly, you have “Filters” for Popular, Deep cuts, and New releases, as well as Pump-up, Chill, Upbeat, Downbeat, and Focus. Sometimes, YouTube Music will note when there are “No songs to play” and you have to try different options.

Once complete, you’ll get an “always updating” radio using the new layout. The playlist is named after the selected artists and characteristics. It can get unwieldy if you select more than a few artists.

You can manually save this radio using “Add to library” next to the play button.

YouTube Music is advertising this feature as providing users with “a lot more control over their music listening experiences” than other streaming providers.