YouTube Music is officially celebrating its 10th anniversary. Naturally, it’s pulling out all the stops. For the rare breed that somehow despises both Spotify and Apple Music, YouTube Music is bringing in some sweet upgrades.
Music now brings gamified fan badges, playlist comments, Taste Match playlists, and even real-time concert alerts through Bandsintown, making it just like other apps, but with a slight edge.
YouTube Music Gamification
At the heart of the update are new fan badges, including “First to Watch” and “Top Listener.” These badges reward users for their engagement history, letting them proudly showcase their loyalty to artists.
For musicians, you can now get to incentivize repeat listens, shares, and fan participation, gamifying the relationship between artists and their audiences. These features especially help artists who are breaking out, and need that kind of support.
Artist Milestones: Fans Can Push Views Over the Edge
In a parallel upgrade, YouTube Music is rolling out artist achievement milestones. Music videos approaching key thresholds, like 100,000, 1M, even 1B views, will now be spotlighted. This move is a sure way to motivate fans to rally together and help push their favorite acts across the finish line. It has worked for YouTube for so long, why shouldn’t it do the trick this time.
Bandsintown Partnership Brings Concerts to the Forefront
Yes, pretty much how Spotify listeners can get a whiff of their favorite music band in town, YouTube does it quite on the nose. YouTube’s new partnership with Bandsintown makes live events a core part of the app: users will now see concert listings directly inside YouTube Music, plus receive notifications. These will be about:
- Local shows from favorite artists
- Upcoming releases
- Exclusive merch drops
- Event date announcements
YouTube Music Playlist & Album Comments
With over 4 billion playlists already created, 1.8 billion already public, YouTube is now turning them into social spaces. Fans will be able to comment on playlists and albums, fueling deeper connections, music debates, and shared discoveries.
It’s a direct challenge to Spotify’s social features, and a move to make YouTube Music a conversation-first music hub.
Taste Match Playlists That Refresh Daily
Taking inspiration from Spotify’s Blend, YouTube introduces Taste Match playlists. These are curated mixes that combine the music interests of multiple users. These playlists refresh daily, pulling from YouTube’s vast dataset to deliver tracks that align with collective tastes while spotlighting new releases.
This adds a fresh layer of personalized social listening to the platform, giving fans more reasons to check in every day.
YouTube strengthens its edge against TikTok and Spotify, positioning itself as one of the leading global hub for music engagement, both online and off. Previously, we have seen YouTube Premium services adjusting the prices of the packages so that a YouTube user could access all the Music features without paying extra. And that too at a price cheaper than Spotify!
Which makes everyone wonder, if it is the right time to jump ship to YouTube Music or wait it out.