YouTube Music, it sucks. But I get it included/benefits from other shit, so whatever, I'll stick with it. I'd switch to Spotify if I wanted another one, but I'm not going to pay two subs, and the YouTube premium benefits are worth it.
I don't care about music enough to switch, and my wife + kid are the primary users. 90% of use these days is "Hey google play disney dance songs" which is fine, it works and you pretty much can't fuck that up.
The radio/playlist/mixes in YouTube Music are the dribbling shits. Fuckin HORRIBLE. Worse, much worse, than Google Play Music. It's been like 2 years or more since YTM launched, the radio/playlists SUCKED then, it was a major complaint, and it's been 2+ years and as best I can tell they are not better at all.
Play Tom Petty Radio
[play list generates]
Of the first 10 songs, 4 of them are Tom Petty or Tom Petty & Stevie Nix songs. Of the other 6 is is like this horrible clash of soft 70s/80s rock, and it's just so so so so bad. Nobody who is asking to listen to Tom Petty radio wants to hear The Band - The Weight or John Melloncamp. They're just not the same. This was my criticism a couple years ago, so let's run a Tom Petty radio collection now:
Just generated a Tom Petty radio playlist.
Tom Petty fans, look at how bad this is.
20 songs on this list right here.
- 5 Tom Petty songs
- 5 Bob Seger Songs
- 2 Bruce songs
- 3 Fleetwood Mac songs
And then it's just the most fucking generic 70s/90s rock that most people don't want to hear unless it's like ... "Bar rock radio" ... Magic Carpet Ride, Pink Houses, fucking Life's Been Good, Can't You See...... 🤮
And these are just such generic 70s/80s rock radio hits. And listen, I love Bruce Springsteen, I love Fleetwood Mac, I like Bob Seger, but I don't want generic rock radio , I don't want to hear ... monster ballads from the 70s/80s.
Like it's just so bad. And it's been like this for 2 fucking years.
I wish I could see what Spotify's Tom Petty radio was like. I just tested out Amazon music, and you can't get a full queue... It says it learns based on your preferences, but I just ran through 5 songs and it was really, really bad. I didn't think anything could be worse than YouTube Music for this, but it was.
Sadly, GOogle Play Music's radio feature was fucking awesome. I dunno, it just understood that Tom Petty radio is going to be a mix of 70s/80s rock, rhytm & blues, ecclectic rock songs, some pop-rock americana, some alt country, some modern, some classic, like a good ecclectic mix... that if you're into Tom Petty, you probably like Bruce but you probably like the deep cuts of Bruce the most, and you probably like Dylan, some Neil Young, some Dire Straits stuff, some modern alt pop rock... But not fucking the most generic 70s/80s rock songs like Life's Been Good, Magic Carpet RIde, and Pink Houses.
So let's do Paul Simon
Okay, so first, hats off to YouTube Music for putting I Know What I know and Loves Me Like a Rock on this. I Know What I Know is basically the perfect song to start off a *Paul SImon* radio playlist. Deeper track, underrated, excellent song, more modern world music than the folk stuff, which if you wanted the folk stuff then you'd probably do SImon and Garfunkel.
But look at the list? So many of the same songs as Tom Petty Radio.
Twenty songs
- NINE OF THEM ARE PAUL SIMON / S&G SONGS FOR FUCKS SAKE... Paul Simon *RADIO* should be different than PAul SImon *GREATEST HITS PLAYLIST* FFS
- 2 Seger songs
- 3 Fleetwood mac songs
- 3 Petty songs
And then again basically big rock radio hits from the 70s... Van Morrison, Cant You See again, fucking Brown Eyed Girl ... Tom Petty's big hits. And then, okay, so we've got a Crosby Stills Nash -Young song...... and it';s fucking ... Judy Blue eyes for fucks sake NO. Off screen is Darius Rucker wagon wheel. Like ... it's just... it's just impossible.
