YouTube Music courts mega fans with new features

YouTube Music is celebrating its tenth birthday with new features for stans, including its first foray into community comments.

Announced on Aug. 21, the streaming platform will now let users leave their thoughts and engage with other users directly on albums and playlists — not just videos — and link up with friends and fellow fans using "taste matching playlists." The playlists will update daily based on the viewing and listening habits of joined users.

YouTube Music subscribers can also find more information about their favorite artists in the real world, including notifications for new releases, merch, and live performances, through a partnership with Bandsintown. Users deemed "top fans" and artists who reach new milestones in music video views will also earn exclusive profile badges.

If these features sound familiar, it's because most of them are already available to Spotify listeners, including Blend playlists, live event calendars, and artist milestones — the music service even added an integrated merch hub on artists' pages. Other music streaming platforms have introduced features to support stanning behavior, too, like Apple Music's live performance Set Lists and shared playlists.

YouTube Music was first launched in 2015 as a standalone app, and has since rebranded and expanded within the YouTube ecosystem, including a Premium tier that now lets subscribers experiment with generative AI features and a Recap feature created in the image of Spotify's Wrapped. In February, the platform announced it had reached 100 million subscribers.