YouTube Music may not be Spotify levels yet in terms of features and popularity but Google is intent on making it at par or even better than the music streaming giant. One feature that users liked is what was formerly known as Your Mixtape, an “Endless personalized music station”. It has since then been renamed to Your Mix but that doesn’t seem to be the only change you’ll eventually see. It will eventually become just a playlist updated daily and not the live mix that you can change whenever you want to.
If you’re new to YouTube Music and don’t understand why this change would upset users, here’s a background on what Your Mixtape was. Based on the name itself, it is a mixtape of 25 songs that the algorithm says you’ll enjoy. Every time you tap the album art with the play button, it will refresh the songs. So basically, you have an endless music station that is created based on what you listen to (or watch on YouTube).
Last December, YouTube Music announced they were bringing three new playlists under the “Mixed for you” shelf: Discover, New Release, and Your Mix. They said that these playlists would be updated weekly which they eventually said would be daily. But that meant that Your Mix would not be a live mix/radio station anymore but a static playlist. You can’t get a new mix anymore whenever you want to but will have to wait whenever YouTube Music will update it.
The sort of good news is that they have expanded the previous 25 tracks to 100 songs. And unless you tap shuffle, you’ll get the same sequence and songs every time you listen to it. That removed the dynamic nature of the previous Your Mix playlist which was something users were pretty fond of. We don’t know if they’ll eventually bring back the live mix but for now, that’s what we can expect when the update rolls out.
9 to 5 Google says this updated Your Mix version isn’t available yet for all users so while you still have your “live” version, better take advantage of it now. No news yet as to when the new playlists, which were announced late last year, will roll out for YouTube Music users.
