YouTube Music appears to be testing another new feature that will allow listeners to customize their radio queues via a list of filters located in the "Next" section of the playlist.
The feature doesn't appear to be widely available to YouTube Music subscribers yet, but it was highlighted on the YouTube Music subreddit (opens in a new tab). The post features an image showing the filters that appear just above the playlist as pill-shaped selections (thanks, 9To5Google (opens in a new tab)).
Hanubeki, the Reddit user who wrote the original post, says the image shows filter options for "Everyone" (which appears to be the default), "Family," "Recommendation," and "Instrumental." They add that the options seem to change from song to song, varying when a different song is played.
The point of the feature appears to be to allow listeners to customize their radio queues on the fly, without having to go back and choose a completely different playlist. If you look at the Next queue and don't like what you see, these filters can theoretically adjust the list to include more songs you like.
Is YouTube Music booming?
YouTube Music has impressed us in recent weeks with a steady stream of quality of life updates, and this new addition to the radio queue looks set to become another winner in the feature cap app. Of course, we can't really gauge its usefulness until we've tried it for ourselves, but the idea of being able to quickly adjust a queue without going back is certainly appealing.
The discovery of the feature comes shortly after Google announced improvements to its YouTube music streaming feature, another quality-of-life change that should help listeners instantly connect to their most-used streaming device.
Prior to this, the Android version of the app also had the ability to save queues as playlists, which was previously only available to listeners using the app on iOS. These updates, along with plans for a dedicated podcast section in the app, perhaps show that Google is interested in adding shine to YouTube Music permanently for the foreseeable future.
So we expect YouTube Music to be even more abundant with feature and quality of life updates throughout this year and next.