Do all modern pop songs have to use the F*** word?

Whatever happened to decency and intellectualism? As far as I’m aware, Spotify doesn’t ‘do’ parental controls. I’m not a prude, and I’m also not the first parent to complain about this problem, but I am trying to rear my kid with a sense of decency and decorum. Don’t get me wrong, I swear like the granddaughter of a general contractor, but not regularly in front of my child. And I don’t consider it hypocrisy; I consider it maintaining a certain level of appropriateness and setting a good example. Girls still have so few competent role models these days who aren’t taking pretty pictures of themselves on Instagram, as the mom, I have to set the bar as high as possible.

Sure I could hand pick bespoke playlists for my 6 year old, but it seems like a huge waste of my time, especially how quickly songs go up and down the charts. We like to listen to the UK Top 50 chart on Spotify but there are only a handful of current songs we can listen to without me jumping up to fast forward to hopefully the next song that isn’t about making that b**** famous and his N****** in the hood. Trust me, Kayne, you are so gangster already based on your delusions of grandeur.

In some chart songs the edited ‘radio’ version is just as good, if not better than the F-word one. For example, our current favourite song is ‘Cake by the Ocean’ by DNCE. The clean edit is just as good with “let’s go crazy, crazy!” but I can’t find it on Spotify even to download separately. However, after just seeing the video, they are no longer my favourite. Girls in bikinis having a cake fight, really (is it just me, or is this 2016, seriously guys)?

It almost seems like a requirement for these 20-somethings to use f***-ing in their songs (Zayn comes to mind). Is there no other way to show your desire to have sex with someone? I’ve had my concerns for years about the internet and social media completely affecting the, shall we say, normalcy of today’s teens and twenty-somethings current sexual reference points or realistic sexual understandings, and my fears are realised as sex is directly referenced in so many of these lyrics like that’s all they spend their time doing. Maybe they are so lucky, but when I was in my 20s, I had to complete Uni and then get a job. We had to fit the f***-ing in with the rest of normal life. These kids make it seem like f***-ing all day is their normal life.

And sure, with the F-word being just about every part of speech, of course it’s not always used to reference sex. Wouldn’t it be a lark NOT to use swear words in your pop songs and try to put out both an enjoyable and decent album? Like it or not, as artists, you are role models to adults and children. A friend of mine took her 7 year old (who is totally in love with 1D) to a 1D concert and spent the night covering her little girl’s ears because one member spent the entire concert swearing at the audience. Classy. My daughter saw this same pop star on a talk show and said, “Mommy, why does that boy touch his hair so much?” My guess is he thinks he’ll score that much more by doing it. He has no other obvious talents.

I’m sure a lot of moms would thank you big, creative pop stars for considering your youngest fans, and ensuring that your music is properly represented –edited and not – across all the channels to which you license it. It’s time to make Spotify clean up its act.