YouTube Music, a new music streaming service, is coming soon to New Zealand.

From Beyonce’s livestream at Coachella to landmark videos like “Despacito”, “New Rules” and “This Is America,” more than 1 billion music fans come to YouTube each month to be part of music culture and discover new music. It’s also where over 2 million artists come to share their voices and art with the world. YouTube is where artists and fans connect: creating and discovering a world of music.

But YouTube was made for video, not just music. On Wednesday, May 23 (NZST), we’ll be changing that by introducing YouTube Music, a new music streaming service made for music with the magic of YouTube: making the world of music, including your favourite Kiwi artists, easier to explore and more personalised than ever. The days of jumping back and forth between multiple music apps and YouTube are over. Whether you want to listen, watch or discover, it’s all here.

YouTube Music is a new music streaming service made for music: official songs, albums, thousands of playlists and artist radio plus YouTube’s tremendous catalog of remixes, live performances, covers and music videos that you can’t find anywhere else - all simply organised and personalised. For the first time, all the ways music moves you can be found in one place.

So what is YouTube Music exactly?

A new music streaming service from YouTube 

• A reimagined mobile app and brand new desktop player that are designed for music. 
• YouTube Music has thousands of playlists, which also surface local Kiwi artists, the official versions of millions of songs, albums, artist radio and more, in addition to all the music videos people expect from YouTube. 

Find more of the music you’re looking for, including from your favourite Kiwi artists 

• Remixes, covers, live versions as well as deep cuts you can’t find anywhere else – from the biggest artists in the world, your favourite local Kiwi artists, to the freshest voices breaking through. 
• New and iconic videos from God’s Plan and Havana to Thriller, Sledgehammer, and more. 
• YouTube Music search works even if fans don’t know exactly what they’re looking for … we’ll find it if they describe it (try “that hipster song with the whistling”) or give us some lyrics (try “I make money moves”). 

Effortlessly discover new music and new Kiwi artists 

• YouTube Music’s personalised home screen dynamically adapts to provide recommendations based on people’s listening history, where they are and what they’re doing. At the airport? We’ll recommend something relaxing before the flight. Entering the gym? We’ll suggest some beats to get the heart-rate going. 
• Thousands of playlists built to help you discover new music. That means no matter what kind of music you like, where you are, what you’re doing, or what mood you’re in, you can easily find the right playlist for that moment. 

While fans can enjoy the new ad-supported version of YouTube Music for free, we’re also launching YouTube Music Premium, a paid membership that gives you background listening, downloads and an ad-free experience for NZ$12.99 a month. If you are a subscriber to Google Play Music, good news, you get a YouTube Music Premium membership as part of your subscription each month. And if you use Google Play Music, nothing will change -- you’ll still be able to access all of your purchased music, uploads and playlists in Google Play Music just like always.

To extend the features of YouTube Music Premium beyond the music app, we’re soon introducing YouTube Premium, the new name for our YouTube Red subscription service. YouTube Premium includes ad-free, background and offline across all of YouTube, as well as access to all YouTube Originals including Cobra Kai, Step Up: High Water and Youth & Consequences. YouTube Premium will continue to provide an ad-free experience, background play, and downloads across the millions of videos on YouTube. But because it includes our brand new YouTube Music service, the price will be NZ$15.99 for all new members. If you’re already a YouTube Red (soon to be YouTube Premium) member, don’t worry you’ll still enjoy your current price.

Starting Wednesday (NZST), we're rolling out early access to the new YouTube Music experience in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and South Korea*. It will expand more broadly in the coming weeks. We’ll also soon be launching in Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. If you want to know when the new YouTube Music is available in your country, head to music.youtube.com/coming-soon and let us know you’re interested.

^{*South Korea will only offer the YouTube Premium membership, not YouTube Music Premium.}