iTunes Match Match Explicit Songs Matches Clean

I have contacted support directly, and they won't do anything to fix it. They just give a boilerplate general response saying that they're looking into it.

I gave a list of affected songs, and they won't actually go into the system and correct them for me or anything.

They're stonewalling us.

I'd settle for a way to manually select between multiple versions myself. I realize that the matching issue is a tough one to correct, because their database is such a mess. (The iTunes store has always had mislabeled, redundant and unclear content.)

If it takes human ears to make the selection at a certain point, then so be it. I'm willing to do it, but I can't tolerate being saddled with these butchered versions of songs. If I seem overly agitated, I should add that I bought an Apple TV unit solely because of iTunes Match, so right now I feel like I'm out $125.

The entire album g unit: beg for mercy is bleeped out.

Is there a way to just make it rescan certain songs (i am guessing no).

Also, when apple fixes this serious issue they are going to have to put in a way to rescan / rematch songs or it wont fix the issue for people that have already scanned their library as those songs that are matched will still play edited/censored on the iphone, ipad, etc.

This morning i just ripped the entire Dr Dre - Dre 2011 in the latest version of itunes and the "The Watcher" doesnt match up at all. Tons of silent spots were it is censored. The entire album matched but about 75 percent is explicit and 25 percent is edited.

This is starting to become a scam.

For me it's censoring two Nas albums. It Was Written and "Nas" - which is the real atrocity given it's subject matter about censorship. Both albums were purchased via iTunes before they removed the DRM protection and they have "Explicit" meta tags. Then the Lil Wayne "Tha Carter IV" is also censored. Not an iTunes download, just a "match". I dunno, I'm back to syncing the old fashion way because listening to cleaned music is simply unacceptable to me, especially given I'm paying for the service.

Another issue I have with itunes match is I can't manually manage what's stored on my phone. It's all or nothing.

If i want to make sure something is stored locally I have to download over wifi before I leave home if I dont want to pull it up streaming.

Also I'm not completley sure how it works, it seems like it downloads the songs, but does it ever delete them? there should be a way to manage what you want to stream and what you want to store locally. This way if you download a explicit song you can delete it from you phone and re-download the explicit version (in the case that they ever fix this issue).

My subscription is half up and this thing seemed to roll out in a beta form and is till not 100% working.

I also had issues with my playlists updating. Seems to be working better with the latest updates, but still its difficult to manage playlists there are a bunch of dups that pull in different tracks from Recently Added. I have like 3 different Recently Added Smart playlists and they are not that smart.

From my understanding, only Apple TV truly streams music from iTunes Match. The way it works for iPod & iPhones is it'll start streaing once you initate the download but it downloads the content to your phone so you can replay it later. If you want to remove it, you can swipe the Album in the Music app to remove it.

However this doesn't remove or correct what's already on the Cloud for iTunes Match if the album is clean or mismatched to a live album or something. You can only do that via a Mac or PC using iTunes at home by highlighting the album and pressing Delete. It offers you a checkbox to remove from the cloud and then after wards you have to say No to deleting it to the trash (just remove it from iTunes). However when I added the album back to rematch it, I haven't had success getting my 3 albums uncensored on the cloud.

It's not all bad and it's not all the albums that get mismatched. In practice it actually works great and I haven't had issues manually managing my music. Perhaps you just need to check the "Manage My Music" box in iTunes on your PC/Mac to set it up. I just hope the Match fix on Apple's end is on the way soon.

I understand that a class action lawsuit is being launched based on this issue. If it's a bug, they've had more than enough time to fix it, or at least deliver a mechanism via iTunes to choose the right version of a song that they have delivered improperly.

I was under the impression they were using sound wave analysis to determine the track. It also can't be that difficult considering shazaam and many crappy devices have had sound wave analysis for quite sometime now.

It really can be simpler than you think. In my case, all I need is an account option that says "Default to explicit versions when matching songs". My purchased songs work fine. My uploaded songs obviously work fine. When the sound wave analysis is complete, the iTunes servers should recognize that there are two files to choose from. Use a "default" account setting or provide a window to select on a song-by-song basis. Either way, it is better than the wholesale cleaning of my entire ripped library.

I'm sure this was luck more than anything else, but iTunes Match gave me a censored version of Monster by Kanye West (off of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy). It was awful. I deleted the file from my MBP and redownloaded from iCloud, though, and was just given an explicit recording. No idea what prompted the change but maybe you'll get lucky?

@ annnthony- I will certainly test your theory. That may help as I find songs that came in as "edited" from iTunes Match. But really I need Apple to get to the bottom of this. I can manage to fix a few this way, but I have literally hundreds of explicit songs that have (as far as I can tell) been affected by this. I get that early adopters get to deal with the bugs. I just want Apple to officially announce this issue and keep us informed of the progress.

@ John P.- I have contacted them twice now. Once a few months ago when I first noticed that a couple of songs had been "edited", and then again a few weeks ago after I realized how many were actually affected. Both times I have simply been told that they are aware of the problem and have people working on it.

That is good, but this has been an issue since iTunes Match first released. That is an awfully long time. And they have not really noted that this could happen anywhere or released any official statement. If I was someone that waited until now to sign up for this service, I would be irate. I think we should expect something more than "We are working on it" six months after release. Especially for a service we are paying extra for.

Yeah, I don't really care if they ever fix the matching. I just want the ability to choose when there is more than one version. A global option does make the most sense as you suggest.

It's not complicated in the least, and everyone I've contacted through the proper support channels has been totally unhelpful, and barely seemed to even understand what I was saying.

I went through the Express Lane option noted above and I did get a response from a customer support rep. I think it is important to go through iTunes -> iTunes Store -> Connecting & Downloading to note that is a software issue. After filing my complaint I got a response and was given 5 song credits (not a big win, but a win). I did not have a chance to respond to the rep and she sent me a followup inquiry a day and a half later to make sure I got her response. I just sent her a reply saying I am still unhappy, and we will see what she says.

I have been following this post for about a month now, since my hard drive died and I had to actually utilize the service I had been paying for; and I think that if we all have 5 mins to read these posts, we might as well take 5 mintues to file formal complaints and hope that the problem will get fixed.