Find music from artists you like

You can subscribe to music artists and get notifications from their channels to stay updated on their latest music, videos, and tours.

Subscribe to an artist

You can subscribe to an artist just like any other creator on YouTube by following these steps:

  1. Sign in to YouTube.
  2. Go to a video of the artist you like.
  3. Under the video player, click or tap SUBSCRIBE.

Once you subscribe, any new videos published by the artist will show up in your Subscriptions feed. Learn about subscribing to channels. You can also subscribe to artists on channel pages.

Types of channels an artist can have

An artist can have more than one type of channel on YouTube:

  • A channel the artist manages themselves.
  • A partner-provided channel, which is managed by a YouTube Music distribution partner (like a record label).
  • A topic channel, which YouTube auto-generates. These channels are titled “Artist Name - Topic” and say “auto-generated by YouTube” in the channel’s About section. Learn about auto-generated topic channels for artists below.
  • An Official Artist Channel Music note , a collection of an artist’s music and videos from across all their different YouTube channels. You can find an artist's Official Artist Channel (OAC) by searching for the artist on YouTube. You can also find their OAC by watching an artist's official music video. Learn about Official Artist Channels.

If you’re already subscribed to an artist’s topic channel or partner-provided channel, you’ll automatically be subscribed to their Official Artist Channel when it’s created. Notifications will then be sent from the artist's Official Artist Channel. Learn about notifications from artists below.

Once subscribed to an artist’s Official Artist Channel, your subscriptions to their topic channel and partner-provided channel will be inactive. This means they’ll no longer be in your subscriptions list. You can still find an artist's topic channel or partner-provided channel in Search, but these channels will no longer have a subscribe button.

As always, you can manage your subscriptions for any channel you subscribe to, including Official Artist Channels.

Notifications from artists

Once you subscribe to a channel, you may start getting notifications when the channel publishes new videos. By default, we'll only send you the highlights from the channel. Learn how to manage your notifications.

If an artist has an Official Artist Channel, you'll only get notifications from their official channel in your subscriptions feed.

The type of notifications you'll get from an Official Artist Channel depends on the notification preferences you've had for other channels from the artist:

  • If you’ve set bell notifications on the Official Artist Channel, you'll get bell notifications regardless of your setting on other channels. 
  • If you've set highlights on the Official Artist Channel, you'll get highlights regardless of your setting on other channels. 
  • If you have any other notification setting on the Official Artist Channel, and you have either bell notifications or no notifications set on the partner-provided channel, then the Official Artist Channel will get the notification settings from the partner-provided channel.
  • Preferences from a topic channel do not affect your notification settings for the Official Artist Channel.

Music release notifications in Shorts

Some music preview pages in Shorts may have the option to get notifications when the full-length song is available.

To get release notifications in Shorts, tap Notify me  from an eligible sound or Shorts preview page. On the day of the release, tap on the notification to start listening to the release or album track.

Note: You can sign up for notifications if the label/distributor has allowed this feature for their release.

Auto-generated topic channels for artists

You may see both a topic channel and an Official Artist channel in Search. An artist’s topic channel is auto-generated by YouTube and is titled “Artist Name - Topic.” If an artist doesn’t have an Official Artist Channel, you can subscribe to their topic channel. This will add the topic channel to your subscriptions list, but will not add any videos to your subscriptions feed. You won’t get notifications from topic channels.

If you’re an artist with a topic channel, we recommend setting up an Official Artist Channel.

 

How does YouTube decide when to auto-generate a topic channel for an artist?

A topic channel is created for an artist when they have a significant presence on YouTube. If an artist doesn't have a topic channel, it may be because:

  • There are only a few videos from the artist.
  • The artist’s videos do not have many views.
  • The artist’s videos don't meet YouTube's quality standards.
How does YouTube decide what content goes into an artist's topic channel?

Using algorithms, YouTube figures out the central topics in a video and uses that info to develop video collections for an artist. Topic channels can contain content from an artist channel, as well as user-generated content. These channels don't convey any editorial opinion on the part of YouTube.

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