If you venture out beyond the calming waters of Spotify and Deezer, you’ll encounter strange new lands like YouTube Music. It’s not new, having occupied space in South Africa since 2019, but it does have something new going for it.

The service has launched a new feature that lets listeners create their very own custom radio stations. The concept isn’t new. Most streaming music platforms offer something like it. But the Google-owned platform seems to be offering more granular control.

Making YouTube Music

Specifically, users can select up to 30 different artists to appear on the radio station. From there, the frequency with which each artist appears can be adjusted via a slider. It’s also possible to filter that station according to mood. You could create the most brutal death metal workout station ever heard but throw in the occasional show tune if you were so inclined. (That’s called Norwegian Roulette.)

“With this new radio functionality, we’re flipping that model on its head, empowering users to create their own radios from the ground up, by combining key music building blocks such as artists and common music descriptors,” the company said. “The result is giving users a lot more control over their music listening experiences, and allowing them to slice their music in many ways currently unavailable to them, on YouTube Music or really any music service.”

The feature is coming to YouTube Music users on Android and iOS. It’s accessed via an option called ‘Your Music Tuner’ on the main page. Every country with access to YouTube Music (including SA) is in line for the upgrade. Weirdly, all users and not just R60/m subscribers will get the feature.

Source: TechCrunch