While listening to music, especially when listening to through Autoplay after an album, through Discover, Daily Mixes or automatically generated playlists, Spotify often plays the "clean" edits of songs that have their original version tagged as explicit.
The option "Allow playback of explicit-rated content" is there for people who don't want explicit content, but the behavior of this option is not ideal for people who have it enabled.
If an explicit version of a song exists, I do not want to hear the censored, chopped up version with often mangled lyrics. I want to hear the original song as the artist intended it. In my opinion the clean version is nearly always inferior to the original.
Currently it seems like the use-case of people who want to hide explicit music is valued higher than the use-case for people who want to listen to the original. I would argue that we should be treated at least equally.
What got me here today was while listening to "Ten thousand hours" by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, and hearing "Make sure the soundman doesn't block-block the drums" and hearing frequent "Shht"'s really breaks the flow of the track.
What especially triggered me, is that it showed that I had "hearted"/liked the song. I did like the original version, and it occurs in multiple playlists of mine. The clean version does not.
Note that this is not a complaint about this song in particular, it is just an example that occurred today.
If the "Allow playback of explicit-rated content" option is ticked, the "clean" content is very likely of no value to the user, and should never be favored over the original version.
If you do not want to force this behavior to the entire userbase, or change existing behavior for existing users, then an option could be to add an extra opt-in setting to "Block playback of clean edits when original is available" or something similar. So basically the exact opposite of the currently already implemented "Allow playback of explicit-rated content" is desired: never allow clean edits.
Your team might well come up with a different, perhaps better solution, but the end goal would be to never have to listen to a "clean" version again when the original is available.
Many ideas have been submitted before, they are however all closed, marked as duplicate, marked as "unclear" or found to have not enough votes.
This new submission is an attempt to combine all previous efforts and hopefully get some traction.
While not all of the options discussed below are exactly the same, they are all about this topic and they all suggest some way of playing the original over the clean edit.
If you see all the previous topics in the table below (there are probably others that I might have missed), it is clear that this is a frequently brought up topic in the community.
Hopefully listing them here helps people find this feature request.
| Category | Status | Date | User | Title | Url | Comment |
| Idea | Implemented | 2012-03-29 11:01 PM | thegooch | Censorship | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Implemented-Ideas/Censorship/idi-p/32561 | While marked as implemented, it isn't really, you still get censored music very frequently |
| Idea | Inactive | 2017-05-17 10:08 PM | princebolkonsky | [Music] Clean Tag for censored / edited Tracks | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Music-Clean-Tag-for-censored-edited-Tracks/idi-p/16806... | "Not enough votes" |
| Question | Redirected to Ideas | 2018-07-18 12:21 AM | kneeboard85 | Is there a way to only play explicit versions of a song? Basically filter out radio edit versions | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Content-Questions/Is-there-a-way-to-only-play-explicit-versions-of-... | Right idea, just posed as a question |
| Idea | Closed | 2020-04-08 05:21 AM | NeoDinero | [All Platforms][Playlists] Explicit | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/All-Platforms-Playlists-Explicit/idi-p/4925000 | "Not enough votes" |
| Question | Unsolved | 2020-04-15 11:53 PM | CouchMountain | Stop putting censored versions of songs in my Release Radar and Discover Weekly | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Content-Questions/Stop-putting-censored-versions-of-songs-in-my-Rel... | Much discussion and suggestions in comments |
| Idea | Closed | 2020-06-08 06:05 PM | MaadhavShah | [All Platforms] Remove The Clean/Edited Versions Of All Songs/Albums If Preference Set On Profile | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/All-Platforms-Remove-The-Clean-Edited-Versions-Of-All-... | "Haven't heard back from you" |
| Idea | Closed | 2020-08-06 09:57 PM | Rodez | [All Platforms] Force Explicit | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/All-Platforms-Force-Explicit/idi-p/5012341 | "Not enough votes" |
| Idea | Closed | 2021-02-11 09:56 AM | jonthore_ | [All Platforms] Remove the edited versions of songs setting | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/All-Platforms-Remove-the-edited-versions-of-songs-sett... | "Not enough votes" |
| Idea | Closed | 2021-04-29 03:57 AM | MusicLord | [Other] Playing Uncensored songs only | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Other-Playing-Uncensored-songs-only/idi-p/5195990 | "Not enough votes" |
| Idea | Closed | 2021-06-25 10:38 PM | BIGSTEPPA | [Desktop] Have censored music not play | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Desktop-Have-censored-music-not-play/idi-p/5227514 | "Not enough votes" |
| Idea | Closed | 2021-11-12 04:27 PM | Kevin1174 | Can you please stop putting clean songs in my release radar playlist | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Can-you-please-stop-putting-clean-songs-in-my-release-... | "Doesn't meet requirements" --> "Unclear ideas" |
| Idea | Closed | 2022-02-26 11:38 AM | Dylax | [Browse] Only Explicit Songs Filter | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Browse-Only-Explicit-Songs-Filter/idi-p/5347736 | "Doesn't meet requirements" --> "Checking for existing ideas" |
| Idea | Closed | 2022-08-19 11:12 PM | VuanJega | [All Platforms] Disable Censored Songs | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/All-Platforms-Disable-Censored-Songs/idi-p/5419323 | "Doesn't meet requirements" --> "Checking for existing ideas" |
| Idea | Closed | 2022-08-25 08:08 PM | rileycullen11 | Stop prioritizing the "clean" versions of songs | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Stop-prioritizing-the-quot-clean-quot-versions-of-song... | "Doesn't meet requirements" --> "Ideas about pricing, subscription or content related requests. We cannot influence those." |
| Idea | Closed | 2022-08-26 08:34 PM | Jakeheut | [Browse] Hide Non-Explicit Albums | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Browse-Hide-Non-Explicit-Albums/idi-p/5421959 | "Doesn't meet requirements" --> "Checking for existing ideas" |
And while they are not 100% related, these topics might not have been raised if this problem was solved, they seem to have found clean options of a specific song, while they explicitly wanted the original version.
| Category | Status | Date | User | Title | Url | |
| Help - Specific Content | Unsolved | 2018-05-11 06:50 PM | Dai_Evil_Doer | Sensored Metal?.. Not on my watch | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/Sensored-Metal-Not-on-my-watch/idi-p/4479610 | Question about specific content censorship |
| Help - Specific Content | Unsolved | 2018-05-18 06:49 AM | Smarre | [All Platforms][Music] ”The Way Of The Fist” - Five Finger Death Punch | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/All-Platforms-Music-The-Way-Of-The-Fist-Five-Finger-De... | Question about specific content censorship |
| Help - Specific Content | Unsolved | 2018-05-22 07:08 AM | -0z_r97pbpx7w | Can't play explicit version of "the way of the fist" Five Finger Death Punch | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Other-Podcasts-Partners-etc/Can-t-play-explicit-version-of-quot-the... | Question about specific content censorship |
| Help - Specific Content | Unsolved | 2018-10-28 05:30 AM | user-removed | [All Platforms][Music] ooh killem explicit version is censored | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Closed-Ideas/All-Platforms-Music-ooh-killem-explicit-version-is-cen... | Question about specific content censorship posed as idea, not 100% the same idea as this but still kind-of related |
| Help - Specific Content | Unsolved | 2019-06-22 10:11 PM | karolina0 | i cant play certain explicit songs? | https://community.spotify.com/t5/iOS-iPhone-iPad/i-cant-play-certain-explicit-songs/m-p/4773855 | Question about specific content censorship |
And these older ideas were referenced from some other ideas/questions, but I get Access Denied:
| Category | Status | Date | User | Title | Url | |
| Idea | Acces Denied | ? | ? | [Mobile][Music] Show Explicit content option per default | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Archived-Ideas/Mobile-Music-Show-Explicit-content-option-per-defaul... | |
| Idea | Acces Denied | 2013 | ? | Explicit Only Edited Only Option | https://community.spotify.com/t5/Archived-Ideas/Explicit-Only-Edited-Only-Option/idi-p/401396 |
Updated on 2022-10-31
Hey! Looks like your idea is growing up fast and it's amazing! We are going to change its status to 'Good Suggestion' now and we hope it continues to be supported by more and more users.
Thanks again for your suggestion. We really appreciate it 🙂
More information about how the Spotify Idea Exchange works can be found here.