What you need to know
- YouTube Music has begun rolling out real-time lyrics.
- The lyrics tab will display larger text that automatically highlights and scrolls as a song plays.
- The feature is currently rolling out, although it’s not widely available at the moment.
YouTube Music may be one of our favorite music streaming platforms, but the app often lags behind others when it comes to adopting certain features. And while static lyrics are already available on the service, YouTube Music users are finally starting to receive more lively real-time lyrics.
Some Reddit users have revealed what the feature looks like as it rolls out on their devices. Compared to the default static lyrics on YouTube Music, this new iteration is much bolder, and the lyrics appear to automatically scroll and highlight as the song plays.
Oddly, the feature has started arriving without as much as an official announcement from YouTube, although one could still come as more people receive it.
The feature doesn’t look much different from what we’ve seen on other platforms like Spotify, which rolled out real-time lyrics globally in 2021. YouTube Music is a bit late to the party, although it was spotted testing some form of real-time lyrics late last year. Still, it’s nice to see it’s finally reaching users.
The obvious benefit of real-time lyrics is that you don’t have to do any of the work. Instead of having to scroll and squint to read the rather small font, now the app will do the scrolling for you with text that’s much easier to read. It’s much more ideal for users that want to sing along or have impromptu karaoke sessions.
This isn’t the only change that YouTube Music has seen lately. Along with a new filter for podcasts, YouTube Music has begun testing a new grid layout for the Library that has also started showing up for some.
As far as real-time lyrics, it seems the feature is appearing on YouTube Music version 5.51.50. It’s likely a server-side change, as many on Reddit have pointed out that they’re not seeing the change yet. Several of my devices are also yet to receive real-time despite being on the latest version of the app.
