iTunes accidentally censors clean track titles

A temporary problem with the UK's iTunes Music Store has accidentally altered the names of a number of songs after the service was checked for explicit references.

Wrongly altered titles include 'Smells Like T**n Spirit' by Nirvana, 'K****r Queen' by Queen, 'I Thought I Saw A P***y Cat' by Danny Kaye, and 'The Cheeky Song (Touch My B*m') by The Cheeky Girls.

The word "gay" was left unchanged, but the programme also picked up some references to "lesbian" and partially blanked them out, and although artist names remained largely unaffected, some Johnnys - including Cash and Mathis - lost their first names, reports BBC News.

An Apple spokesperson said in a statement that the company did not know why their software was picking up these words as explicit references, and added that the "censorship" was not intentional.

They also promised that the problem would be fixed as soon as possible.