Apple Investigating iTunes Match Bug That ‘Censors’ Explicit Songs

A new iTunes Match bug publicised by Cult of Mac, which causes explicit songs to be censored, is in the process of being fixed by Apple, 9to5Mac reports.The problem is caused by the iTunes Match software not being to distinguish the difference between the two versions as the differences are so slight.

The big is particularly bad if you like listening to rap songs, due to the high number of swear words that feature. As Cult of Mac’s Buster Heine writes:

It pretty much ruined my jog because I was really really wanting to sing along and drop 50 “F-bombs” a minute. Maybe this is just a rare glitch in iTunes Match’s system, but it’s a travesty tantamount to treason in my eyes and I want it fixed. To be fair to Apple, this weird change only occured on a couple of the rap songs I downloaded to my iPhone from iTunes Match, but there is definitely a problem here. My downloading skills are top notch, but I still double-checked to see if the files in my iTunes Library were the clean versions of those tracks. They weren’t. iTunes Match got something wrong when it scanned my library and matched it up in iCloud which resulted in my favorite rap artists getting censored.

Here are four tracks I can confirm have been “cleaned up” by iTunes Match:

  • Kanye West’s “Hell Of A Life” from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
  • Kanye West’s “Power” from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
  • Jay-Z’s “Can I Live” from Reasonable Doubt
  • Ice Cube’s “Jack N The Box” from Raw Footage
It would really annoy me as well if I used iTunes Match, as most of my songs are labeled explicit, and having blanked out lyrics is one of the most annoying things ever. Hopefully Apple will fix this soon.
Henry Taylor-Gill

Henry is a student who is a huge Apple fan, and has used their products since day one. He can remember how happy he was when he received the first iPod back in 2001 as a birthday present. He has an international background, having spent most of his life in France but he now lives in the UK. He is also a native French speaker and can also speak Spanish at a decent level. In addition to tech, Henry is an avid sports fan and has his own sports blog.