YouTube Music and YouTube Premium launch in 12 new countries

Today Google is launching YouTube Music and YouTube Premium in the UK and 11 other new countries - Austria, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain and Sweden. YouTube Music was launched in May in US, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and South Korea.

YouTube Music

YouTube Music offers music videos, albums, singles, remixes, live performances and covers as well as curated playlists for mood, genre or activity.

The app features a Smart Search that finds songs by name or by lyrics (even if they are not exact) but can also find "that George Michael song with the models" or that song that goes "ooh la la la" - just like Google search! That's something Apple Music and Spotify don't offer yet.

YouTube Music is ad-supported (read free, with audio ads) but you can pay £9.99 per month (or £14.99 for a family plan) to get YouTube Music Premium with background playback, downloads and no ads.

Current Google Play Music subscribers in any of the 17 countries the service is available, will automatically get updated to YouTube Music Premium.

YouTube Premium

Google is also launching YouTube Premium. It costs £11.99 per month (or £17.99 for a family plan) and gives you YouTube Music Premium as well as the option to view all YouTube videos ad-free, in the background and even offline.

YouTube Premium also nets you access to YouTube Originals - YouTube's own TV series like Cobra Kai, Impulse and F2 Finding Football.

You can try both YouTube Music Premium and YouTube Premium for free for 3 months. You can subscribe here.