YouTube Music to be slightly less terrible for families

Google Play Music, those were the days. My kids wanted to hear a song they’d say to the Google Home device “ok google, play Hair Up from the Trolls soundtrack” and it would. They’d say “play Maggie’s fun playlist” and a slew of songs would work. And then they released YouTube Music and basically destroyed a good thing.

Playlists did not work on the Home speaker initially, didn’t for months as I recall, and something else didn’t work. Kids couldn’t play music unless they were not recognized by google. Guests could request music. Kids could request it on Spotify to a Google Home speaker. But if the Google Home Maggie or Aerin was talking to recognized who they were nope.

This appears to be changing, although one particular point is missing from today’s email from YouTube – that being whether it will work on smart speaker.

Basically the basic functionality that Google Play Music had in 2018 is finally making it to YouTube Music 4 years later. Whether it will work or not with smart speakers, whether YouTube Music will introduce some new way to make music terrible, or whether they’ll abandon YouTube Music and force you to a new app and service called Alphabet Audio remains to be seen.