GoKawiilAt last, parents, your prayers have been answered! On Tuesday, Spotify announced that it’s finally doing something to fix how your kids’ listening habits ruin your end-of-year Spotify Wrapped experience, and then some.
The company said it’s introducing a new toggle that will allow you to exclude kids and family music from your taste profile. That means no more Kidz Bop or Disney tunes in your personalized playlists, and no more K-Pop Demon Hunters track “Golden” as your most-played song of the year. (Or whatever your kids are into!)
The feature is now rolling out globally on mobile devices for both Free and Premium users and will automatically exclude kids’ music from your taste profile when enabled.
Yes, we know the world has more pressing problems, but this is something Spotify users en masse — well, at least those with kids — have complained about yearly since Wrapped’s debut.
The problem stems from the fact that parents’ accounts are often used for their kids’ listening, even if the family has separate accounts for the children on a Spotify Family plan.
That’s because home devices, like TVs and smart speakers, are often linked to a parent’s account so the family can stream music without restrictions. These devices are often found in common areas of the home, like living rooms, dens, and playrooms, where kids have access. Plus, many kids may have a speaker in their bedroom to stream things like bedtime tunes and lullabies.
Kids also tend to demand control of the music while in the car. And parents acquiesce, as they’ll essentially do anything to get a moment’s peace — even if that requires listening to Jack Black’s “Steve’s Lava Chicken” from the Minecraft movie over and over.
The end result of all this shared listening is that Spotify no longer knows what the account owner actually likes and what they’ve been forced to stream under duress.
Now, after years of complaints, that can change. Spotify says the new toggle will default to including the kids’ music in your taste profile, but once you switch it off, those tracks will no longer influence your taste recommendations. This includes tunes from animated movies, theme songs from family TV shows, nursery rhymes, and other music designed especially for kids.
With this music excluded, those streams will no longer affect Spotify’s suggestions, including playlists like Discover Weekly or Daily Mix, as well as its popular year-end review of your listening, known as Wrapped. What’s more, the change will apply retroactively, meaning the kids’ music you’ve already listened to won’t count toward your Wrapped top song or artist, for instance.
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