Remember when you could open up a song or video on your smartphone within YouTube's native app, well Google finally decided to bring that feature back sort of...YouTube is still a standalone app but also there is a service you can pay a $13.99 per month which is YouTube Red which allows you to play your favorite songs in the background and cache YouTube songs to create an offline mixtape. To also compliment their YouTube Red subscription Google has released a separate app YouTube Music where you can watch videos or if you prefer to just listen to music switch it an music mode which you won't see video and can choose from different YouTube Music radio stations which YouTube compiles from based off your video and song watching habits.
Upon first downloading the YouTube Music app, you get a two week trial of YouTube Red which will also extend if you are using the traditional YouTube app, YouTube on your computer and YouTube Music. I'm not sure why YouTube would choose their subscription fee 0f $13.99 (Tidal had to learn being steep on prices was not the best plan of sell the hard way) especially when you can pay cheaper per month to stream music a la Apple Music, Spotify and Pandora. After you run out the two week trial, there seems very little incentive for anyone to continue to have YouTube Music app. Freemium features seems nonexistent. Once you are using YouTube music app free you won't be able to play music in the background without the app currently up on your smartphone or tablet.
YouTube Music is a cool app and a game changer but sadly I feel like their subscription fee they want you to pay is too much to stream music. I'll use it every now and then but feel like deferring to Apple Music, Soundcloud, Spotify, and Pandora as the way to go to stream music. My advice to YouTube is give the users who would like to use YouTube Music on a freemium basis something to incentives to keep the app on their devices.