Jon Gilbert is a technology journalist with five years of experience covering mobile technology. He's covered smartwatches, tablets, smartphones, and Android accessories. He's attended CES to explore unique hardware like the Pebble Round 2 or Mudita Kompakt. His daily mobile tech life revolves around Pixel devices, which he has used since the Pixel 2 XL. Jon loves exploring the latest Android features, but is highly sceptical of anything related AI.
Choosing a music streaming app is a difficult choice. Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music. There's plenty to choose from when it comes to platforms.
Most tracks are available on all platforms, so availability isn't an issue. When I switched from Spotify to Tidal, I lost only 10 of the 3,209 tracks saved in my Spotify library.
Instead of music availability, the factors at play are price, features, UI, sound quality, and ethics. Careful consideration of these factors is what made me switch to Tidal, but for months I tried to switch to YouTube Music.
I've been trying (and failing) to justify a YouTube Premium subscription since the service launched, but the awkward and cluttered YouTube Music app put me off.
However, I discovered a third-party client that turned my least favorite music streaming app into one I would consider using.
Metrolist isn't pretty, but it has one major advantage
Skip the pointless recommendations and video suggestions
One of my biggest gripes about YouTube Music is how it pushes video content and podcasts front and center.
There's a tab for TikTok-like cuts of music videos to scroll through, the first filter on the home screen is Podcasts, and recommendations for YouTube videos take up a frustratingly large amount of space on the same screen. It also mixes in my YouTube playlists with my regular ones.
I want my music in one app and my videos in another. This clunky marriage makes the main reason I use the app (music!) frustrating at every turn.
However, Metrolist showed me that I was wrong. I didn't hate the mix of music and videos in one app; I just hated how YouTube does it.
Metrolist still lists music videos, YouTube playlists, video recommendations, and podcasts, but less intrusively. Take a look at this side-by-side comparison of the home screens.
I hear you say, "But Jon! Metrolist isn't exactly an improvement! Look at the oversized carousel! And it only shows playlists!" To which I applaud your observational skills. Well done!
However, here's the thing: I have never liked a music app's home screen. I open my music apps to listen to music, not idly scroll through recommendations. That's why Metrolist won me over, as it lets me skip the home screen.
This one feature is a lifesaver. I can open the app and go to my library without interruptions or distractions.
Best of all, Metrolist lets you customize what you see on this screen and which library tab it opens. I tend to listen to albums, not playlists, so opening the app into a filtered list of my albums is a dream come true.
This feature alone almost made me subscribe to YouTube Premium. It's truly user-friendly, and I now resent every other music app for not including it. Even Tidal, my streaming app of choice, puts me through three screens before I see my albums.
But Metrolist is more than an easy way to access your albums.
Metrolist's clean UI is overly simple, but refreshing
A touch of personality would go a long way here
It's clear from the moment you open Metrolist how it was developed. It's Material You from top to bottom; I couldn't spot a custom asset anywhere. This approach has advantages and disadvantages.
On the one hand, the UI is easy to understand and navigate. If you've used any Google app before, you'll feel right at home.
On the other hand, it suffers from the "flatness" that plagues Material You. Every other music streaming app has a distinct feel, but Metrolist feels like every low-budget utility app I've used since Material You launched.
By default, Metrolist hides YouTube Shorts and video songs, but you can re-enable them if you wish. You'll find toggles for everything from subscriber counts to artists' descriptions that further declutter the UI.
You can't get rid of them entirely, but you can relegate all videos to a small box on the app's home screen.
Metrolist circumvents one of the biggest perks of a YouTube Premium subscription, but there's a catch
Offline play means you can't use the Play Store
If you go to the Play Store to download Metrolist, you won't find it. Metrolist is only available as a direct-download APK file, likely because it breaks the Play Store's T&C's. I can't find a reference to this, but I can guess why.
Through Metrolist, you can download songs for offline play without a subscription. It's not a perfect system, as the downloads freeze constantly, but a quick app refresh or Wi-Fi switch gets them working again.
If offline playback was one of the biggest draws for a YouTube Music subscription, this is a neat workaround. The catch is that you have to download the app as an APK, which leaves you open to malware and spyware.
Metrolist's GitHub page provides safe download links, but always be careful when downloading APKs.
Is it time to switch music apps again?
Metrolist renders a YouTube Music subscription irrelevant. I'm considering a YouTube Premium Lite subscription (essentially YouTube Premium without YouTube Music perks), but at the end of the day, I need to consider where my money goes.
I'm happier paying Tidal for a monthly subscription than Google, even if I have to suffer through ads daily. YouTube's aggressive push towards making free YouTube steadily worse has also put me off.
Metrolist might have made my least favorite music app usable again, but picking a music app is about more than its features.