Block explicit lyrics in music subscription services

A while back I offered advice on choosing the best music service for your family, with an eye toward convenience, versatility and especially price.

One important consideration I completely forgot was explicit lyrics. Given that pretty much every modern song contains bad language (that’s right, I said it — now get off my lawn!), parents might want the option of blocking those songs, or at least making sure clean versions are played instead.

Good news: Most major music-streaming services have an explicit-lyrics filter. Here’s a look at the options and, where applicable, how to enable them.

Amazon Music

Explicit-lyrics filter: Yes

Subscribers to Amazon Prime get unlimited, commercial-free access to a library of around 2 million songs. Subscribers to Amazon Music get considerably more.

Both tiers now include a filter for explicit lyrics. 

How to turn it on: On your phone or tablet, open the Amazon Music app, venture into Settings, then toggle on Block Explicit Songs.

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Apple Music

Explicit-lyrics filter: Yes

Apple offers a fairly robust explicit-content filter, one that covers not only music, but also music videos, podcasts and news. If Apple Music offers a “clean” version of a particular song, it’ll play that in place of the explicit version.

How to turn it on: You’ll need to do this on each individual iDevice. Tap Settings > General > Restrictions, then Enable Restrictions and create a four-digit passcode so that only you can disable the restrictions. From there, scroll down to the Allowed Content section, tap Music & News, then toggle the Explicit option off.

Google Play Music

Explicit-lyrics filter: Partial

Google’s music service includes the option to “block explicit songs,” but only those played on its radio stations. The filter doesn’t apply to the larger library of on-demand music, which is arguably the whole point of subscribing.

How to turn it on: In the app, venture into Settings and toggle Block explicit songs in radio. In your desktop browser, open up Google Play Music, click the Menu icon, then Settings. In the General section, tick the box marked Block explicit songs in radio.

Pandora

Explicit-lyrics filter: Yes

Pandora has no family plan to speak of. Although you can disable explicit content within its mobile apps, there’s nothing to prevent your kids from turning it back on when you’re not looking.

How to turn it on: In the app, tap the Menu icon, then Settings > Account. Tap Allow explicit content to toggle it off.

Spotify

Explicit-lyrics filter: Yes

It took a while, but Spotify has finally added the option to block explicit songs.

How to turn it on: In the app, tap Your Library > Settings > Explicit Content. By default, Allow Explicit Content is toggled on; tap to turn it off.

Originally published on June 1, 2016.
Update, May 22, 2018: This post has been updated with the latest information.

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