Explicit flag discrepancy between API and web page for a clean song

mr_bones — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 01:04:24 GMT

Hi There,

Can anyone explain an apparent explicit flag discrepancy between the Spotify API and web page for Great American Bar Scene by Zach Bryan? When viewed with the Spotify web app, there is no 'E' prefix but the 'explicit' flag is True in the data returned by an API query using spotify.search(). Any pointers as to how I can avoid false positives such as this when using the API are much appreciated.

-Eric G.

Details:

Target song: https://open.spotify.com/track/1TsadArUq4i1MXlpVBfVpk

API Data Decode:

track = results["tracks"]["items"][0]
normalized_title = track["name"]
normalized_artist = track["artists"][0]["name"]
is_explicit = track['explicit']

topic Explicit flag discrepancy between API and web page for a clean song in Spotify for Developers

Explicit flag discrepancy between API and web page for a clean song