Amazon, a company we've all grown to tolerate for over more than 30 years. From online shopping to streaming content to their innovations such as Alexa and drone-based delivery, you can't deny that they're a very versatile company. But one thing they can't seem to do right is music streaming.
My mom uses Amazon Music, and has the Amazon Music Unlimited subscription, as she likes to listen to music in her truck. Her favorites consist of various artists like Aerosmith, Jelly Roll, Ariana Grande, Five Finger Death Punch, and various 80s and 90s hip-hop artists.
But my biggest gripe with Amazon Music is their sudden urge to label songs with no objectionable content as [Explicit].
I first noticed this back in 2017, back when the movie "A Star Is Born" was all the rage. Its biggest hit, the acoustic classic "Shallow", performed by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, who were the leads in the film, was marked as explicit, just because there were a few songs on the ASIB soundtrack with language in it. "Shallow" ITSELF contains no swears, so why the heck is IT and the other songs without swears labeled Explicit?!
They also recently labeled Adele's hit song "Rolling in the Deep" Explicit due to a lyric that is commonly misheard as a swear. The lyric officially written as "...and I'll lay your ship bare" is misheard as "...and I'll lay your s**t bare". The song is played with no edits on my area's top local variety stations WBMX (Mix 104.1), WMJX (Magic 106.7) and WPLM (Easy 99.1), which proves the lyric is "ship". Amazon's just in the wrong to label Adele's breakout hit as Explicit.
And for a final staple in the Amazon box, they labeled one of my childhood favorite late-80's hip-hop hits as Explicit, even though there's no swears in it AT ALL!
Remember the game SSX Tricky? That game, developed by EA Canada, and released under the "EA Sports BIG" brand, was one of my all time favorite sports games growing up due to its smooth controls, funny characters and voice lines, and overall excellent presentation, on both the audio and video fronts.
The icing on the cake is the use of the song "It's Tricky" by Run-DMC as the game's theme song. A sample of its chorus are layered into each course's music track when you fill up your "tricky" meter or perform über tricks. Heck, they even matched the sample to each track's tempo! It's still one of the best snowboarding games ever created.
Even today I associate that song with the fun times I had playing SSX Tricky on GameCube with my brother Justin.
So guess what Jeff Bezos's money munching corporation did? They labeled that ultra-nostalgic song that I associate with one of my all time favorite childhood sports games EXPLICIT!!!
FOR THE LOVE OF KAORI NISHIDAKE*, WHAT THE HECK WAS AMAZON THINKING?!
(*Kaori Nishidake is one of the snowboarders from the SSX series.)
And keep in mind, while the song has mildly suggestive lyrics, it contains not even a single swear!
And worst of all for Amazon, GUESS WHAT AGE RATING SSX TRICKY GOT BACK IN 2001?!
SSX Tricky was rated "E" for EVERYONE.
Yes, Amazon thinks that a song used as the theme for a snowboarding game that was rated E for Everyone back in '01 contains language that would've given the game an M FOR MATURE rating.
Yeah, I know "It's Tricky" came out 16 years before SSX Tricky did, but the latter increased the former's popularity, and as such, its connection to the franchise caused it to continue to appear in later SSX titles, such as the 2012 reboot.
Fans of the game even want to see a remake or remaster. Give me SSX Tricky Remastered on Switch and Switch 2! Then EA can have my cash.
Anyway, that's why I prefer to download music off of YouTube and listen to it on VLC. That way, I have control over how I label songs. If I want It's Tricky, i can download it off YouTube and listen to it without Amazon's stupid mislabeling.
Just saying.
That's it for my rant on Amazon Music's mislabeling of non-explicit songs.
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