How to Create a Radio Station on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music

Music streaming service algorithms do a great job of suggesting songs based on the songs you're already listening to. Although it may seem harmless at first glance, this approach essentially limits your listening genres and you will eventually reach a state where you end up wondering why all the songs in your music library sound the same. If you're looking for ways to discover new songs and diversify your listening habits, creating a radio station is a great way to start.

Create Radio Station on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music

What differentiates radio stations is that music suggestions are based on a particular song or playlist, as opposed to your entire music library. This way, if you've found a new song and want to explore more songs of that genre or mood, you can simply create a radio station for that song. Today we're going to show you how to do that on popular music streaming services. That said, let's get started.

Note: You can create radio stations based on artists, playlists and songs. I am using Song Radio in this article to get specific results.

1. Create a radio station on Spotify

Spotify moved from endless radio to radio playlist a few years ago. When you start a Spotify radio, you get a playlist with a limited number of songs based on the original song. To get started, tap on the vertical three-dot menu present at the top right corner of the player interface and choose "Go to Song Radio".

Spotify will now direct you to a playlist it claims is based on the original song. However, I do not entirely agree with this statement for two reasons. First of all, the track "Dastaan" is an instrumental masterpiece, while the songs generated in the Spotify radio playlist have a strong voice. Another flaw of Spotify radio playlists is that they are heavily inspired by global listening habits. As you can see below, I liked almost all the songs in the generated playlist and I don't find them relevant compared to the original song.

In fact, I'm not the only one feeling this. Browsing through Spotify community posts, I found several instances where listeners agree that Spotify Radio is essentially an echo chamber now . That said, there is a workaround to get an endless song radio station on Spotify. Instead of creating a song radio, you should create a new playlist with that song and start a playlist radio . Unlike music radio, playlist radios are always infiniteand you get more songs the more you listen. Oh, and if you're wondering, artist radios work the same way as song playlists. If you liked this nifty trick, check out our best Spotify tips article.

2. Create a custom Apple Music station

To create a radio station on Apple Music, listen to an artist, song, genre, or playlist, and choose 'Create Station' from the list of available options after tapping the horizontal three-dot menu . If you're using an iPhone, you can also use the command "Hey Siri, start a station from ".

You can tap the Queue button in the lower right corner to view two upcoming songs. New songs on Endless Radio will appear as you listen. In my experience, I've found Apple Music's custom stations to be relatively faithful to the mood of the original song.

3. Create YouTube Music Radio

If you want to stop wasting time on YouTube or if you have transferred Google Play music library, YouTube Music is a great option. To create radio stations on YouTube Music, tap the vertical three-dot menu in the top-right corner and choose "Start Radio."

You can swipe up from the bottom to access the Song Queue . Moreover, you can easily swipe left to remove the songs you don't like from the queue. Additionally, hold down the slider at the far right to reposition upcoming tracks.

Use radio stations and discover new music

As you get older, your musical tastes change and you are forced to outgrow certain songs. The song you're currently listening to on repeat might sound too lame if you play it after a few years (with some exceptions, of course). Therefore, you can use radio stations to keep your music library fresh and robust. If you want to share your newly discovered songs with your friends, check out our article on how to share songs to Instagram Stories from Spotify, Apple Music, etc.