It’s the bane of every parent’s streaming existence: your kids messing up your algorithm. There you are, feeding it a wholesome, organic diet of meticulously cultivated Bon Iver and Ryan Adams, only for the young ones to foul it all up with the theme from Captain Underpants. Again.
Well now Spotify has a fix. It has introduced a toggle that lets you exclude kids and family music from your taste profile. Best of all, it works retroactively, so you can purge your profile of all that K-Pop that kept the kids entertained over the summer holidays.
Not only will this not affect which songs the algorithm suggests to you, it will also mean that your Discover Weekly, Daily Mix, and Wrapped more accurately reflect your taste.
However, we can see a problem. What actually counts as kids’ music? Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande both appeal to lots of younger fans, so how will the algorithm know what you are playing for them and what you’re enjoying yourself?
Spotify is a bit vague. It just says that this includes “the songs you play on repeat from your kids’ favourite animated movies, theme songs from family TV shows, nursery rhymes, and more.” We’ll have to see how it works in practice.
With the setting enabled, you can still search for, play and create playlists of kids’ music. But it won’t affect your own personal profile.
The feature is rolling out now to both free and Premium customers.
Spotify recently allowed the ability to exclude certain tracks or playlists from your taste profile, and has managed accounts for younger listeners.
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