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Spotify’s new artist mute function: genius or cop out?

Sick to death of a few annoying artists ruining good playlists? Or just need to veto Justin Bieber forever?

The second of Spotify’s intriguing new functions announced this month, you can now block artists as you would an annoying person on Instagram. To silence artists from your Spotify account, one just has to go onto their artist profile, where there is now a new ‘don’t play this artist’ toggle.

Right away a few artists come to mind who need muting, but there’s no need to waste time naming them all.

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Image: Shuttershock

Spotify has introduced a new function allowing users to mute artists from their playlists. Who will you be silencing forever?

The idea for a mute artist function came about in response to the #MuteRKelly campaign. The campaign called on RCA Records, Spotify, Apple Music, Ticketmaster and Greensboro Coliseum Complex to all remove music from the artist following disturbing charges and allegations.

Previously Spotify attempted to remove unruly artists from their editorial and algorithmic playlists through their ‘Hateful Conduct’ policy. This was aimed at removing the music of an artist who “advocates, or incites hatred or violence against a group or individual”, however this was specifically targeting R. Kelly and XXXTenacion.

After receiving intense backlash last year from both users and major industry influencers, Spotify removed this policy. While the mute feature is definitely a cop out on the issue, it does come with other benefits that we can 100% get behind.

As of yet the mute feature does not extend to tracking features on other artists’ tracks, so we still depend on our favourites to follow suit of Lady Gaga and remove their collaborations with those who don’t deserve our respect and listening time… or just plain suck.