Google Brings Podcasts to YouTube Music

Google announced today that podcasts are now available in YouTube Music on Android, iPhone, and the web in the United States. This feature doesn’t require a YouTube Music Premium experience, but it does require some cognitive disassociation, since podcasts and music are not the same thing.

“We’re happy to share that podcasts on YouTube are now available in YouTube Music,” an announcement on the YouTube Music Help forums notes. “We’re rolling this out to all our listeners in the United States gradually, so hold tight if you don’t see it yet. This update allows those watching podcasts on the main [YouTube] app to continue listening to them on YouTube Music.”

Google revealed that it was bringing podcasts to YouTube Music back in February, and I couldn’t be less happy about this change. As I noted in Podcasts Are Not Music (Premium), the insane drive to commingle podcasts, which are mostly spoken word, with music, is a terrible idea, and it makes the app busier and full of content that is unrelated to why someone would use it in the first place. As bad, Google made a terrific and minimalist Google Podcasts app that is now being shut down.

For now, at least, the podcasts UI in YouTube Music isn’t as in-your-face and schizophrenic as that in Spotify: they’ve only added a single Podcasts toggle button right at the top, next to Workout, Energize, Relax, Commute, and Focus, and there’s a new Podcasts item in Library next to Playlists, Songs, Albums, and Artists. But seriously, Google. F’ing seriously. Podcasts are not music.

If you live outside the U.S. and are waiting for this feature for some reason, well you’re part of the problem. But Google says that it will bring podcasts to YouTube Music in other regions soon. So we can all suffer together, I guess.