YouTube Music adds song play counts, AI playlist art creator gets wider availability

Abner Li | Dec 15 2023 - 12:05 am PT

In addition to rolling out the gradient background for Now Playing, YouTube Music this week is adding play counts for every song, while the generative AI creator for playlist art is seeing broader availability.

When you view an album or public playlist created by YouTube Music, you’ll now see the play count for every track. It’s on the same line as the artist name and song length in the Android and iOS app.

This information was previously available in “Song details” at the bottom of the Now Playing Related tab. It does not appear for your or other user-created playlists.

YTM surfacing this information makes the experience feel a lot more like the main video service. Some complain that this addition makes album pages a little bit too crowded, with the implementation as a dedicated column on the web much nicer.

Meanwhile, another YouTube Music feature seeing a wider stateside rollout this week is the playlist artwork creator. When you view one of your playlists, a circular pencil FAB appears in the bottom-right corner of the cover.

You start by choosing one of nine themes: Colors, Cycles, Travel, Moods, Nature, Animals, Landscapes, Food and Drinks, or Fantasy.

This generates a prompt with one to three aspects that you can change. Your selections are limited to a carousel, while there’s also a “Randomize” button. YouTube Music generates seven choices with the ability to get “More” at the end. You can go back to the “Original” 2×2 grid of album art at any time.

This generative AI-powered feature was announced at the end of October in the US on Android and iOS with some users seeing it shortly after.

Another small change that YouTube Music recently made is a new currently playing indicator that appears in the bottom-right corner of cover art instead of at the center.