Spotify finally seems to be listening. It must be a funny revelation for them to have, given that their entire business is built around the concept of listening. Maybe it just had the volume on their customer feedback track turned down too low to hear all the people clamoring for the ability to exclude certain songs and playlists from screwing with their song recommendations.
Beginning October 1, 2025, you can now select whichever tracks and playlists you want and exclude them from the data that Spotify uses to nudge you toward other songs and artists.
Spotify (opens in a new window)
Available at Spotify
Buy Now (opens in a new window)
Long overdue
It was only three months ago that Spotify got the message that people wanted to be able to turn off the annoying sponsored music recommendations.
Excluding a song or playlist means it’ll no longer influence your Taste Profile, or as Spotify puts it, “Spotify’s interpretation of your taste based on what you listen to and how you listen to it.”
“It helps us to personalize your Spotify recommendations, like Discover Weekly and your Home page. It also helps us to personalize experiences with taste summaries, like Wrapped and Blend.”
You can select a track or an entire playlist for exclusion. Once you have your target selected, click the three dots that opens up the settings menu. Then select “exclude from taste profile.” To add it back later, take the same steps, but click “include in your taste profile.”
That’d be a boon for folks who have sleep sounds or playlists for their kids that they don’t want bleeding into their song recommendations. Imagine having a thing for ’90s hip hop and being unable to keep Raffi songs from populating your home page just because you have a three-year-old.
Or that embarrassing song you have saved to your Liked Songs that you don’t want screwing up all your recommendations going forward…
Spotify (opens in a new window)
Available at Spotify
Buy Now (opens in a new window)
The post Spotify Now Lets You Stop Songs From Affecting Your ‘Taste’ Algorithm appeared first on VICE.