What you need to know
- YouTube Music is lightly testing a redesigned Casting UI and live lyrics alongside it.
- The lyrics currently being sung appear highlighted in white before it auto-scrolls to the next line.
- The Casting UI features moving elements such as the album cover, information on the artist, songwriters, and a blurred background.
YouTube is seemingly beginning to test a new feature for those looking to sing along with their favorite tunes.
A Reddit user posted the supposed testing features, including a look at the redesign of YouTube Music's Casting UI (via 9to5Google). The overall UI while casting your YouTube Music songs is where the testing begins. Through a Cast from their Pixel 6 Pro to a Chromecast Ultra, the Reddit user found that when a song is beginning, its album will remain front and center for a time before shifting off to the right side. In the empty center, the song's artist and title will appear before giving way to the lyrics if available.
The background of the Cast also appears to be a zoomed-in version of the album the song is from.
Since these are "live lyrics," the words will appear highlighted in white as the singer serenades you before scrolling to the following line. This is very similar to how the lyrics function on other popular music apps like Spotify.
It's also been found that once the song finishes, Google will display a list of credited songwriters. Also, if there are no lyrics available to sing along with, your Cast will simply show the album's art, song title, and the artist's name in the center of the cast and not off to the side.
The current testing of the live lyrics and the Casting UI redesign is not widely available, unfortunately, for any looking to take a gander.
While this is a neat feature to see added to the casting feature of Android devices through YouTube Music, it would be better if Google brought the live lyric feature to the mobile app. As it stands right now, YouTube Music lyrics on your phone are static, requiring you to scroll through them and (hopefully) not lose your way while singing. This still puts Spotify ahead of the Alphabet-owned music streaming platform since these lyrics auto-scroll and highlight for you right on your phone.
YouTube Music's update from November introduced version 5.32 to users which rolled in improvements to the Now Playing screen and hid the dislike button for songs. This update brought YouTube Music on Android more in line with other changes the company has been ushering in over the past few months.
The Chromecast with Google TV (HD) can easily become the best new piece of tech in your home. The products runs Android 12 out of the box, includes HDR support, and works seamlessly with your Android phone. Google's Assistant is also readily standing by for any show or movie queries.
