[All Platforms] Explicit Filter

[sekuether21]

Add a button that controls whether Explicit songs are played or not.  When it is off and you're listening to an album or playlist, the explicit songs are skipped. That way you can still listen to your favorite album or playlist when more impressionable members of the family (kids / parents) are around.

[simoncurtis123]

Spotify is not fit for general playback of music without the ability to NOT play explicit songs

[user-removed]

One thing to consider, after six years of feedback and over 11 thousand votes to include this filter, is that it's simply more valuable to ignore this request than it is to implement it .

From a software development standpoint, this is very easy. I've developed software for over 25 years so I know how easy this is to add to an app.  But 25 years of software sales & management have taught me that you only implement change if it's valuable to the stakeholders, not the users of the software. 

My guess is there is contract language stating a certain number of songs or albums be offered to play by an artist in order to secure a contract with the artist. If the user decides to skip to the next song, no one can do anything about that. But if the software has filters to stop a song from playing, THAT raises an issue with the contract. 

That's my guess but after observing the  behaviour here, I'm guessing this is the real reason we aren't seeing this change take place. 

[vgullotta]

@user-removed While I completely understand what you're saying, providing that this contract existed with the artists, that contract would be fulfilled even if this filter was created and enabled. As they could very easily write the filter to do something like if(explicitLyrics=$true AND explicitLyricsFilter=$enabled) {play(RadioEditVersion)} or something along those lines. I think that would be the preferred implementation of this, as it would still play the artist's songs, it would just play the radio edit if someone has the filter enabled. 

[user-removed]

@vgullotta, agreed.  The fact that such a simple edit isn't present even after 15 months' passing since the cheery official response tells us there's more than a technical issue at stake here.  Given the length of time contract negotiations and change approvals take, I'm still putting money on a contract setup structure squabble here.  

I'm switching away from Spotify Premium.  A leading competitor does offer explicit song filtering by default - you have to enable the 'explicit content' button in order to hear the lower-class versions of songs.  I didn't know how I valued this until I called out, "Hey Google, play new music" and the response was 3 songs in a row filled with effing thises and effing thatses.  That may be popular, but that's not my world.

[vgullotta]

I agree there's some moronic struggle with someone or something going on. I think my biggest issue with the whole thing is their lack of transparency with their customers. If they'd just give us a little info, we could at least have an idea and make an informed decision. But the lack of communication, especially given the lengths many of us have gone too to seek answers is what frustrates me the most.

[Lyn5]

 @vgullotta who are you switching too?  I would like to know what options are out there.  I just signed up for spotify family plan, but quickly realized we need something with parental controls.

[vgullotta]

I haven't made my decision yet. Currently, I have Spotify so integrated into my life due to being a long time user (about 10 years now) that it is making the decision really difficult. We use it on everything from the xbox and computers, to phones, Amazon Alexa, chromecasts, etc. Music is a big part of our life, and I have so many playlists and things setup that making the switch is extremely painful for me. I have been researching what is the best option. I can't go with Apple music, as I 1) despise Apple as a company and 2) don't have any Apple devices. So I'm doing some research before I make any decisions.

[user-removed]

@Lyn5 I switched back to Pandora just now.  I've been a premium user of theirs for years now (since 2009) and wanted to try out Spotify to see what the difference is with the paid version of the services.  Unlike @vgullotta I have no skin in the Spotify game so going back was pretty easy here.  If this topic is a showstopper for you you may want to try that for a spell and see how you like it.

[Eve1234]

What a great idea. Surely this would enable younger listeners to listen with the parents knowledge that explicit songs would not be played. I hope this is something that will be thought about carefully, at present I don’t let my granddaughter listen to any playlists. Thanks for listening.

[craig54028d]

Any updates? It's been like 15 months and there is still no option to filter out explicit songs.