Best Music Apps for Kids? We Compared Spotify, Spotify Kids, Amazon, Apple & Gabb for Safety

This article was last updated 7/23/2024

Did you know there’s porn on music streaming apps? It’s going largely undetected by parents–even those who have parental controls and filters set up. So what can parents do so their kids can safely listen to music streaming apps? We compared several to find the best music apps for kids. We’ve listed out the pros and cons of each and put it all in a handy comparison chart at the end of this article to help you choose the one that’s right for your family.

Wait, there’s porn on music apps?

Absolutely, especially on apps that allow user-generated content.

Here are some of the most common ways explicit material slips in through music streaming apps:

• Album cover art with explicit imagery. Album art doesn’t get blocked by filters and there’s a current trend of pornographic images being uploaded to Spotify and other services as podcasts.
• Lyrics that graphically describe sexual acts and violence. Explicit lyrics filters only block out common expletives. Songs detailing rapes and killings slip through as long as they don’t use those keywords.
• Podcasts featuring erotic narratives, explicit discussions of sex and sex noises and sounds. It’s called “audio porn” and its showing up on music apps without explicit tags.
• Playlist thumbnail images featuring sexually explicit images. These user created thumbnails slip past the explicit filter since they are attached to playlists and not specific songs or albums. These often show up in innocent searches.

What’s the best music app for kids?

We compared the most popular music apps to find which one is best for kids. We’ve highlighted the pros and cons of each app regarding safety and the most important features for parents, including:

• cost and the number of accounts,
• filtering capabilities, 
• ability to whitelist or blacklist content,
• whether the service has user-submitted content (like podcasts),
• how secure the service’s parental controls are, and
• if it works with monitoring software like Bark.

Related: Explicit Content in 7 Top Music Apps - A Parent's Guide

Spotify & Spotify Kids

Spotify is the music streaming service that revolutionized the industry and is perhaps the most well-known. Though it has a reputation for being on the lax side in policing user-uploaded content, Spotify recently jumped ahead in the family-friendly space with its new Spotify Kids service. The blend of Spotify and Spotify Kids accounts under one family plan and the robust custom filtering offered on Spotify Kids make it a great value for families and may make it one of the best music apps for kids--but it's not perfect (see our warning below).

Spotify Kids

To access Spotify Kids, you’ll need a Spotify Premium Family Plan which gives you six accounts for $19.99/month. Spotify Kids is a separate app from Spotify and lets your kids access two hand-picked libraries of content, one for ages 0-6 and one for ages 5-12. Each library includes age-appropriate music, podcasts, and even audiobooks providing kids with a rich library of content to explore. You also have the option to have regular Spotify accounts for teens that are monitored from the parent account.

Because all families have different standards, even this hand-curated library is eventually going to include some things you don’t approve of (or are annoyed by) and exclude some material that’s important for you (perhaps religious songs or classical music). Luckily, Spotify Kids allows you to blacklist or whitelist any songs as needed.

One great feature of Spotify Kids is that parents can create playlists on their own accounts and share them with their kids' accounts. This way, parents perform the searches, ensuring kids won't be subjected to inappropriate or pornographic content. Kids can request songs to be added, and parents can curate the playlist, making it a safe and tailored listening experience.

To blacklist a song:

• Login to the “Grown-ups Only” area of Spotify Kids on your child’s device.
• Find the song in their listening history.
• Click “Block” in the options menu. 

‍To share content with your kids that isn’t normally included in the library:

• Create a playlist in your Spotify app with the songs you want to share.
• On your child’s device, login to the Grown-ups area of Spotify Kids.
• Find the playlist and use the menu to make it available to your child.

Any songs you add to that playlist in the future will be available to your kids. Note that Spotify’s curated playlists cannot be whitelisted and neither can podcasts.

Monitored Spotify account for teens

There’s no reason kids older than 12 can’t use Spotify Kids, but they may not like the kiddy interface and the limited selection of music. Fortunately, Spotify provides you with the option of creating a monitored account for teens on the regular Spotify app. The only difference between this account and a full account is that you have control over whether the account has access to play explicit music. 

WARNING: Even with a monitored account, there is still a great deal of inappropriate content on Spotify. The National Center on Sexual Exploitation even named Spotify as one of their targets on the 2024 Dirty Dozen List--a list of mainstream contributors to sexual exploitation. You can read more about why Spotify is on this list here.

Here are the drawbacks to Spotify:

• ‍Spotify relies on creators to correctly tag their work, so some explicit content may get through.
• Songs and podcasts often go unlabeled.
• Explicit song titles and album covers are still visible. The teen account has the option to hide “unplayable songs” including blocked explicit songs, but this option can’t be locked down and there’s nothing you can do about explicit album art. These sexually explicit search results are shown, even if they can't be played.
• User uploaded podcasts have unmonitored images and can feature audio porn.
• User uploaded playlists can contain pornographic thumbnails. There are entire playlists dedicated to hosting album covers depicting hardcore pornography, none of which contain any audio content within the albums. These playlists also act as a chat feature where users tag other users and share content, often explicit. These are unfortunately very easy to stumble across. Parents on Spotify community forums called out the streaming giant for pornographic search results when searching for "Moana" or "music videos." NCOSE warns searches for punctuation marks like exclamation points or commas will return pornographic results. Deepfake pornographic images of celebrities can also be found.
• Spotify now offers "Spicy" audiobooks to premium subscribers with a spice meter.
• YouTube and TikTok videos uploaded by other Spotify users are readily available.
• Pornhub playlists on Spotify hosting audio from their pornographic videos.
• Search results appear as a user types. This means pornographic content may be displayed to your child before they even finish their search or hit "enter."
• Contains video content.

Recommendations if you choose to use a Spotify Monitored Teen account

If you decide to allow your teen to be on Spotify, make sure you talk with them about how to avoid this content and what to do when they see it.

We also suggest parents use Bark with Spotify so it can warn you if your child listens to a song with questionable lyrics. Spotify’s extensive library of lyrics works well with Bark’s capabilities and it’s the only music service that does. But please be aware that Bark does not solve all the problems outlined above.

Related: 11 Top Ways Porn Will Target Your Kids in 2024

Amazon Music Unlimited

How do Amazon options stack up? Amazon Music has an array of different services at different price points—it can be confusing to figure out which one has the features you want. The different plan options all fall under these three umbrellas: 

• Amazon Music Free is an ad-supported service with limited skips. 
• Amazon Music Prime comes with your Prime membership and can only be used on one device at a time.
• Amazon Music Unlimited has the most features and is the only service built for families.

The Amazon Music Unlimited Family Plan costs $16.99/month and includes up to six accounts. The Unlimited tier comes with ultra-HD audio quality and support for surround sound, which may be a selling point for audiophiles. Amazon is also known for hosting a large library of ad-free podcasts, including popular kids’ shows.

The parental controls features of Amazon Music are routed through the Alexa ecosystem. You can block explicit content per device, which allows you to continue listening to adult music on your phone while protecting family devices. The exception is that all Echo devices connected to your account will follow the same rule. Sound confusing? It is. You’ll have to remember to turn on the filter for every device and remember to check new devices as they come in. Amazon Music also doesn’t work on Amazon’s Fire tablets if they are running the ages 0-6 theme instead of the ages 6-12 theme.

Amazon’s explicit filter also works differently than Spotify’s: it uses AI to identify explicit language and filter it. While it’s nice that they don’t depend on creators to self-report, it does mean that the filter doesn’t pick up on mature themes in songs if they don’t use the specific words the AI is looking for. It also won’t filter explicit album art and there’s no feature to blacklist or whitelist songs to customize your child’s catalog.

Additionally, the explicit filter cannot be locked down. Amazon simply restricts it to anyone with access to the Alexa app, assuming that kids won’t be able to get access. If you’ve ever had a kid run circles around you with technology, you’ll see why we think this is a pretty naïve assumption and a poor way of protecting kids. 

Drawbacks to Amazon music:

• Sexually explicit podcasts are easily searchable and aren't filtered by the explicit filter. These include written or audio depictions of graphic sex, violence, drug use, dark humor, or adult themes.
• Explicit album art remains visible, even if the album itself is blocked.
• Podcast thumbnails with sexually explicit imagery are easily viewable, even when the explicit filter is enabled.
• Allows live chats with adults. Amazon music features the ability to communicate with customer care, a doctor, or other professionals through live chat.
• Contains video content.

Related: Parent Alert: Worried about Alexa? 4 Tips to Protect Your Kids

[[CTA]]

Apple Music

The first music service to introduce good family features, Apple Music allows families to share a subscription through its Family Sharing ecosystem. It’s a bit more expensive than Amazon or Spotify at $16.99/mo for six accounts, but it has high quality audio features as well as an expanded library of classical music that other services don’t have.

You’ll want to enable two separate filters on Apple Music which are locked behind a parental pin code: 

• The explicit filter for music, podcasts, and news, which is based on a blend of creator reports and AI-detection. Apple is known for being strict about kicking off incorrectly labeled content, so its filters may be more accurate than Spotify. 
• You’ll also want to turn off Music Profiles, which gets rid of the bio pages for musicians which can sometimes have explicit content or suggestive photos. 

Like Amazon, Apple won’t let you customize the filtering by whitelisting content. Kids can block individual songs from the app, but there’s no way for parents to do this or prevent kids from turning it off. However, you could choose to disable Apple Music and simply purchase individual songs through the iTunes store as a work-around.

One nice feature is that Apple will show your child’s most recent listens through the Family Sharing app so you can keep tabs on what they are listening to. Overall, Apple Music is an adequate system for families, especially if they are already invested into the Apple ecosystem.

Drawbacks to Apple Music:

• Contains sexually explicit podcasts. Written or audio depictions of graphic sex, violence, dark humor, adult themes, and profane language may be found.‍
• Pornographic album art remains visible, even with explicit filters on, including images containing nudity, sexualized images, violence, or other adult themes.
• Contains video content.

Related: Porn on an Apple Watch?! How Clever Kids Find It and How You Can Block It

Gabb Music

Gabb Music is the most secure music app we reviewed and for that reason may be the best music app for kids. This service is only available on the Gabb Phone, but since that’s one of the safest phones for kids, it’s worth looking into. Subscribing to Gabb Music adds $4.99 to your monthly bill.

Because Gabb Music doesn’t allow user-submitted content, you don’t have to worry about adult-themed music or porn masquerading as a podcast. Your child will have access to a hand-selected library of real songs with no questionable content. And there’s no need to mess with complex filters and passwords to get it to work.

Related: Best Phones for Kids! Comparison Guide for Gabb, Pinwheel and Troomi

The cons? Gabb Music is missing a few features that have become standard. The service is still operating on a radio model with a limited number of skips per hour on pre-selected playlists. Eventually, the upgraded Gabb Music Plus will allow full song selection and playlist creation, but for now it’s still unavailable and your teen might be disappointed in the lack of features. You also can’t add any additional songs to the pre-selected collection. And if you’re looking for podcasts, this won’t be a good fit as there are none on the platform.

Related: Best Phones for Kids: Parents Give Honest Reviews on Gabb Wireless

Which is the best music app for kids?

The best service for your family depends on your individual needs. Gabb Music has the advantage of a ready-to-go safe environment with no effort required, but with serious limitations on devices and features. Spotify Kids is providing parents with the ability to customize their child’s library, but may be too babyish for teens. Regular Spotify, along with Amazon and Apple, provide similar levels of protection from the most obvious problems, but pornography and other explicit material continues to find a way to slip past detection. Spotify with Bark doesn't block it all out, but can warn you if your kid is listening to music with inappropriate lyrics.

To help you keep it all straight, check out this handy chart:

Our best suggestions for music apps for kids

Our research found that every mainstream music app contains pornography. One reader alerted us to explicit album art on Apple music. We searched for the name of the album on each music platform, and sure enough, with the exception of Gabb Music, we were shown the explicit album cover in each case. Here are our top recommendations to keep kids from encountering this content while still enjoying the music they love:

• Download MP3 audio files. While this is more tedious, it ensures that parents are in the driver's seat, preventing exposure to sexually explicit images or podcasts. Musicolet is a great phone app for this purpose. If your child's phone has a browser, you can download MP3 files directly to the phone. Otherwise, it's an extra but worthwhile step to download the files to a computer and transfer them to the phone via USB. If your child doesn't have a phone, consider using an MP3 player. We've heard good things about the following MP3 players:
  • Yoto player: A fun screen-free device that uses cards for audio playback. Simply download audio files onto the cards, and kids can insert them into the player.‍
  • Mighty Vibe: Another screen-free option that syncs with Spotify or Amazon Music playlists through an app on the parent's phone. It holds over 1,000 songs.
  • Traditional MP3 players: There are many affordable options on Amazon. Be sure to check the features to match your goals, such as avoiding models with browser access or unwanted screens.
• Spotify Kids controlled by a parent allows for music streaming, but puts parents in the driver seat. Note that Spotify Premium is required, which costs $19.99 per month.
• Gabb Music: The safest streaming option for putting your child in the driver seat. However, it has a smaller music library and requires a Gabb phone for access with an additional $4.99/month fee.

Don’t forget the internal filter

In our search for the best music app for kids we did not find the perfect solution. That’s why it’s so important for parents to have regular talks about family media standards, why they are in place, and the many benefits of practicing online safety. In other words, help your kids develop an internal filter to make them resistant to pornography wherever it creeps in. The Good Pictures Bad Pictures series of read aloud books is a great way to start and the Brain Defense: Digital Safety course is a solid follow-up.