Ad-Free YouTube Music and YouTube Premium debuts in India

YouTube has finally announced the launch of YouTube Music and YouTube Premium in India. YouTube Music is YouTube’s “made-for-music” music streaming app and web player which has a bank of official songs, albums, playlists, artist radio. YouTube Music will also include remixes, live performances, covers and music videos “that you can’t find anywhere else”.

While you have access to all this for free in the ad-supported version of YouTube Music, the company has also announced YouTube Music Premium, a paid membership that apart from promising a completely ad-free experience also comes packed with some much-needed features that allow users to play songs and videos in the background, while they toggle between apps or write a text message or continue enjoying music even when phone is locked and it also offers offline downloads.

YouTube Music Premium is priced starting at ₹99 a month. This big announcement comes over a week after Spotify’s much-awaited launch in India.

YouTube Premium too comes with the same app features and it will be available for ₹129 a month. YouTube Premium will also include membership to YouTube Music Premium. This upgrade will also give you access to all YouTube Originals, including Cobra Kai, BTS: Burn The Stage.

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YouTube has over 1 billion users in a month and over 2 million artists on the platform. YouTube Music certainly seems ready to capture the market as it has packed in quite a few features that music fans will love. For instance, it will provide a dynamically adapting home screen that provides song recommendations based on what you are doing at that moment, you can have your choice of songs play while working out, driving or partying at home.

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Your frequently-listened and liked videos will make the page a lot more personalised. YouTube Music also brings in the Google Assistant might, the music streaming app comes with smart search where you can apparently search for a song by lyrics (even if they’re wrong), and you can also find a song even if you don’t remember what it’s called, for instance, “That rap song with flute?”. Paid members can download songs, videos, albums or playlists too.

You can download the app on the Google Play Store and iOS App Store now with 3 months free for YouTube Music Premium.