Let’s Talk About Music: Why 70% Of Today’s Popular Music Doesn’t Make The Cut

The feedback we receive in our annual survey is invaluable to us. Every year, we take what our partners say seriously, and constantly look for ways to improve our product based on that feedback in order to provide our partners the best possible GameTime experience. However, we want to make sure to address one of the most common questions we received this year: Why don’t we have more up-to-date music that comes from the top 100 charts? 

Every Thursday, our Music Team combs through the music charts to make sure that as many songs as possible on that list can be added to our music library. Unfortunately, 70% of those songs don’t make it past our music screening process. We don’t just screen songs for lyrics, we screen for content, too. And that’s what brought you to GameTime! You trust us to play lyric-safe music at your sporting events that won’t have you worried about angry parents or administrators. 

We truly want to provide our partners with the most extensive, up-to-date music library possible – just as long as it meets our music screening requirements! And remember, your students can submit their music requests to us in Voyager! Just know that if they are submitting songs from the current greatest hits list, there’s a good chance it’s already been screened by our Music Team. 

Nevertheless, we will be happy to put any other requests through our music screening process. And if they pass, those songs will be added to your music library! The unfortunate reality is, music is getting less and less clean, but our goal at GameTime is to give you peace of mind with lyric-safe music for all of your athletic events and needs. 

Songs that end up on our “No Play” list are:

-Songs with profanity or racial slurs of any kind.

-Songs that are degrading and/or disrespectful to women.

-Songs that encourage/glorify alcohol or drug use, sex or guns.

-Songs that encourage/glorify violence against women, police or any specific group.

-Songs that encourage illegal activity of any kind.

We do not consider music to be family-friendly if the offending content has simply been “dropped” or “bleeped” out.