How to remove songs with coarse lyrics on Spotify

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Pop music can be about peace and love. But there are songs with coarse lyrics that parents may think that their children should not listen to. Teachers may also find some lyrics inappropriate in gym class or schoolyard. Or it may be that the children themselves do not want to listen to such songs.

The solution is to turn on a filter on Spotify or in the streaming service.

What does the E mean on Spotify?

On Spotify, some of the songs are marked with an “E”, which means that the song contains “Explicit content” i.e., coarse lyrics.

In lyrics marked with E, for example, it is sung about the use of drugs or that one is looking for casual sex. Or that you sell drugs in exchange for sex. Or there are descriptions of sex.

Some descriptions are partly blurred with metaphors that the youngest children probably don’t understand. Other texts say it all out. The texts also use ethnic words that are otherwise considered offensive.

In addition, there is swearing. All this was found in the first two lyrics examined by Barnevakten.

How to remove Explicit songs on Spotify

To turn on the E-filter on a phone:

• Select Home (the icon that shows a house)
• Select Settings
• Find “Allow Explicit Content”
• Turn Explicit Content on or off

On a computer, there is another route:

• Select the icon that shows a human (where your name is)
• Select Settings
• Turn on or off the button that says «Explicit Content»

If you have a family plan, you as an administrator can decide the settings of each account, so you can decide which family members will have the filter turned on.

Find a gentler version of the song

Some songs are available in different text versions. If you are looking for a mild version of a song, you need to search and check if there is any marking of “E” or not. You can also try adding the word “clean” to the title when searching for a song.

Instead of turning on the filter, you can make your child aware of what the E means and encourage using playlists with fewer such E-texts.

Reporting to Spotify

Spotify has a limit on how rough the lyrics can be. If they are too bad, you can report them to Spotify.

Spotify uses the word ‘hateful’ in its reporting headline, so the company definitely means that hateful is over the line. If you want to report a song that you think is hateful, try this form.

Also read:
How to restrict children’s access to pornography
How to reduce real-life violence on social media
How to reduce scary news features on apps

(A longer version in Norwegian is available here. Translated and shortened by Ratan Samadder.)