diff --git a/test/torchaudio_unittest/functional/torchscript_consistency_impl.py b/test/torchaudio_unittest/functional/torchscript_consistency_impl.py
index 3eb869c876..3860e97f41 100644
--- a/test/torchaudio_unittest/functional/torchscript_consistency_impl.py
+++ b/test/torchaudio_unittest/functional/torchscript_consistency_impl.py
@@ -51,20 +51,34 @@ def _assert_consistency_complex(self, func, tensor, test_pseudo_complex=False):
 
         self.assertEqual(ts_output, output)
 
-    def test_spectrogram(self):
+    def test_spectrogram_complex(self):
         def func(tensor):
             n_fft = 400
             ws = 400
             hop = 200
             pad = 0
             window = torch.hann_window(ws, device=tensor.device, dtype=tensor.dtype)
-            power = 2.
+            power = None
             normalize = False
             return F.spectrogram(tensor, pad, window, n_fft, hop, ws, power, normalize)
 
         tensor = common_utils.get_whitenoise()
         self._assert_consistency(func, tensor)
 
+    def test_spectrogram_real(self):
+        def func(tensor):
+            n_fft = 400
+            ws = 400
+            hop = 200
+            pad = 0
+            window = torch.hann_window(ws, device=tensor.device, dtype=tensor.dtype)
+            power = 2.
+            normalize = False
+            return F.spectrogram(tensor, pad, window, n_fft, hop, ws, power, normalize, return_complex=False)
+
+        tensor = common_utils.get_whitenoise()
+        self._assert_consistency(func, tensor)
+
     @skipIfRocm
     def test_griffinlim(self):
         def func(tensor):
diff --git a/torchaudio/functional/functional.py b/torchaudio/functional/functional.py
index 70045018d9..cae0874be6 100644
--- a/torchaudio/functional/functional.py
+++ b/torchaudio/functional/functional.py
@@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ def spectrogram(
         center: bool = True,
         pad_mode: str = "reflect",
         onesided: bool = True,
-        return_complex: bool = False,
+        return_complex: bool = True,
 ) -> Tensor:
     r"""Create a spectrogram or a batch of spectrograms from a raw audio signal.
     The spectrogram can be either magnitude-only or complex.
@@ -76,8 +76,10 @@ def spectrogram(
             Indicates whether the resulting complex-valued Tensor should be represented with
             native complex dtype, such as `torch.cfloat` and `torch.cdouble`, or real dtype
             mimicking complex value with an extra dimension for real and imaginary parts.
-            This argument is only effective when ``power=None``.
-            See also ``torch.view_as_real``.
+            (See also ``torch.view_as_real``.)
+            This argument is only effective when ``power=None``. It is ignored for
+            cases where ``power`` is a number as in those cases, the returned tensor is
+            power spectrogram, which is a real-valued tensor.
 
     Returns:
         Tensor: Dimension (..., freq, time), freq is
diff --git a/torchaudio/transforms.py b/torchaudio/transforms.py
index d524c373de..fff04174ba 100644
--- a/torchaudio/transforms.py
+++ b/torchaudio/transforms.py
@@ -63,8 +63,10 @@ class Spectrogram(torch.nn.Module):
             Indicates whether the resulting complex-valued Tensor should be represented with
             native complex dtype, such as `torch.cfloat` and `torch.cdouble`, or real dtype
             mimicking complex value with an extra dimension for real and imaginary parts.
-            This argument is only effective when ``power=None``.
-            See also ``torch.view_as_real``.
+            (See also ``torch.view_as_real``.)
+            This argument is only effective when ``power=None``. It is ignored for
+            cases where ``power`` is a number as in those cases, the returned tensor is
+            power spectrogram, which is a real-valued tensor.
     """
     __constants__ = ['n_fft', 'win_length', 'hop_length', 'pad', 'power', 'normalized']
 
@@ -80,7 +82,7 @@ def __init__(self,
                  center: bool = True,
                  pad_mode: str = "reflect",
                  onesided: bool = True,
-                 return_complex: bool = False) -> None:
+                 return_complex: bool = True) -> None:
         super(Spectrogram, self).__init__()
         self.n_fft = n_fft
         # number of FFT bins. the returned STFT result will have n_fft // 2 + 1