YouTube launches music service

YouTube has released an exclusive music video mixing and recommendation service, and we thought it was worth testing out.

YouTube Music Discovery has arrived and being the music video junkies we are here at the Blob it seems like a tantalising prospect.

With almost all of the major social networking and media services now having some dedicated music presence, it was only a matter of time before YouTube took the leap as well, especially considering it is used by so many of us as a good source for streaming tracks. But — and it is quite a 'but' — it doesn't do very much to change some of the pitfalls that come with listening to music over YouTube.

The reason for this comes in the form of the playlist tool, and that poses a bit of a conundrum, because it is simultaneously the best and the worst thing about the new service. One of the least appealing things about using YouTube to listen to music before the launch of Music Discovery was the fact that you couldn't really build a playlist, meaning that every track you streamed had to be cued individually, and that's hardly a way to start a party. With the playlist tool in Music Discovery, that's obviously no longer an issue.

The real problem with Music Discovery is the fact that any automatic playlist it generates — as it does after any artist search — is likely to contain songs varying greatly in audio quality, which has and will most likely continue to be at the heart of the dilemma with streaming music off YouTube.

Although that doesn't mean it's not worth using, because hey, we've been dealing with it for a long time anyway, and now it's just a lot easier to use.

Check out YouTube Music Discovery and tell us what you think.