William Gallagher
Apple has removed vocals from the Idris Elba track used in the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus ad "Big and Bigger," seemingly over misheard lyrics.
Two months after releasing the ad on YouTube, and after gaining over five million views, Apple has reissued the video without its opening vocals. The company has not commented on its decision, but it is likely that the change was because of a lyric that was commonly being misheard.
The new version of the ad just includes the music element of the dance track "Biggest," by Elba. Originally, the ad used the song from around 65 seconds into the track, at a point where there is a repeated chanting of the word "bigger."
Heard without the first minute's worth of lyrics preceding it, the word can be misheard as a racial slur.
At time of writing, the original version of the ad can still be seen as posted on YouTube by Apple's division in Australia.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
Christine McKee
Wesley Hilliard
Andrew Orr
15 Comments
This is hilarious. I harken back a number of years ago to some poor bastard who lost his job over in Europe because he used a word in a speech that means “ungenerous and stingy”. Look it up in a thesaurus. He was vilified and canceled. Then the backlash ensued about how the word was a common one and had nothing to do with a racial slur and that ignorant, uneducated race baiters had reacted too quickly. But the poor guy still was pilloried, gutted, and his head placed on a pike in the town square.
If I typed the word here AppleInsider would likely ban me for life, right?
"If you don't buy the next iPhone Pro Super Dexlue Ultra Max, you ain't b...." -JB
This is getting ridiculous.
Death of common sense (not specifically Apple but in general when it comes to such things).