Jefferson Graham | USA TODAY

USA TODAY

UPDATED

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. — YouTube is singing a new song, and it's longer than the ones you'll hear on other services. But the tunes are not often as smart as advertised.

We've spent several days with the new YouTube Music Premium service, which debuted Tuesday morning in a "soft launch" and will slowly roll out to listeners in the next few weeks.

The good: the best music selection anywhere, with the hits, full albums, plus covers, TV, live dates and artist direct uploads. Request a song by Ed Sheeran or Prince, for instance, or even the songs "Perfect" or "Purple Rain," and you'll get non-stop playlists based on their songs and other artists YouTube thinks you'll like. Everything you play on YouTube produces an endless supply of music. If you select an album, you'll get to listen, and YouTube will follow up with a companion selection.

The bad: the playlists are sometimes spot on, other times off base, with the endless mixtapes touted on the front page of the service buggy in that they often show the same artists over and over again.

The pitch from YouTube-owner Google is a music streaming service that makes better recommendations for you because it knows more about you, from your online searches and YouTube viewing history.

But after spending days with the service (music.youtube.com or the YouTube Music app on iPhone or Android), I didn't find the automatic music mixes any smarter than rival Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music. Perhaps YouTube Music will get smarter about me in the coming weeks, as I use it more.

Google

YouTube Music is offered in two varieties, ad-supported or $9.99 for the ad-free version.

Open the app and you begin by telling YouTube what artists you like to listen to. Go to the home page and the first thing you notice is "A Station Built For You," with "endless personalized music." Your mixtape comes from artists you've listened to on YouTube and ones YouTube thinks you will like. Then Google's algorithm puts other similar artists together, as has been done by other streamers.

If you like the late rocker Tom Petty, who once did a duet with Stevie Nicks, then you probably like Nicks' band Fleetwood Mac, and Petty's short-lived side group, the Traveling Wilburys. And since Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison were in the group, add their catalogs and various bands as well. And so on.

After generating too many clicks to create new automatic playlists, I realize my tastes are just too eclectic and specific to enjoy YouTube's mixes. On opening day, YouTube seemed to initially think Tom Petty, who I loved, was my all-time favorite, which just isn't the case. Luckily, as I used YouTube Music more, the endless appearance of Petty in my mixes started going away.

Google

The beauty of the mixtapes it that you can refresh the screen and get new ones. The bad news — every one consistently seemed to be weighted toward one or two performers. In one, virtually every other song was by Petty. Other playlists continued like this — four each from Petty, Adele and the soundtrack of the movie La La Land, another had five each from the late bass player Ray Brown and singer John Legend. Wednesday morning, I got six songs by the saxophonist Wayne Shorter in my mix.

You can remove their songs from the playlists, or better yet, says YouTube, search for other artists and play their music. That way, YouTube will learn who you like and use the information accordingly on future mixes. The mixes can also include live cuts.

That the mixes are initially kind of off-base is a surprise, considering YouTube's recommendation engine, which is usually so good, musically. If I call up one of the acoustic, finger-style solo guitarists that I like, say Richard Smith or Tommy Emmanuel, YouTube typically recommends an endless mix of guitar tunes that rarely make me reach for the fast-forward button.

Pro tip: a better way to have YouTube Music suggest songs for you is to search for a specific song and play it. From there, YouTube will also auto-create a playlist, and since it's not multi-genre, like the mix, will be more in tune with your tastes. A search for "Steely Dan covers,", for instance, brought an endless supply of songs by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen that were right on and everything I would have expected.

Another search for the more contemporary "Party Rock," by LMFAO brought in fellow uptempo tunes by the Black-Eyed Peas, Psy and Maroon 5.

Listening on YouTube allows you to enter the world of amazing musicians working from their living rooms and showing off what they can do on their instruments. I love the soundtrack to 2017's "La La Land," movie, and enjoy watching videos of folks playing instrumental cello/piano duets, solo guitar takes on "Another Day of Sun," and the like.

So YouTube Music is a joy to be able to listen to these songs in mixes, which you wouldn't be able to do on Apple Music, Amazon or Spotify.

Google

That's why I've been a happy subscriber to Google Play Music since 2015, which came with a great bonus feature — the ability to play YouTube clips ad-free and in the background.

But that just changed.

Those bonus features do remain in place for current subscribers of Google Play (which is eventually going away), but new customers of You Tube Music will have to pay an extra $2 monthly to play clips from the main YouTube network ad-free and in the background.

I still love YouTube for the music mix that I get on the main YouTube channel. Few of my favorite guitar players have yet to show up in my YouTube Music created mixes, but they've been easy enough to create by searching for them and letting autoplay do its magic.

Beyond the mixes, YouTube Music revives the "mood" playlists it created for users on Google Play, songs suggested for working out, commuting, relaxing and the like. My experience is these are fun to listen to once or twice, but the matching isn't that spot on and gets boring. YouTube says these mixes will become personalized to you in the coming weeks.

The bottom line: YouTube Music has just opened, and it's clearly a work in progress. For listening to on-demand music, while also playing the videos you love from the YouTube library and the rich bonus material no one else has, YouTube can't be beat.

But unless you have very specific tastes--i.e., you'll only listen to Bruno Mars and Katy Perry, or only classical, stay away from the YouTube Music homepage mixtapes. YouTube's selections might drive you crazy, and I predict you'll be able to do a better job yourself.