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REVIEW #19: KIDZ BOP
[NOTE: Due to being a busy guy these days, I obviously can no longer promise even one review a month, but will try to get
one out whenever I can, so just keep checking the site out and see if there’s anything new. If you want, you can give
me your e-mail address, and I can notify you of new reviews that way.]
Pop quiz time: Q: What’s worse than having songs by J-Lo, the Backstreet Boys, Kelly Clarkson, Good Charlotte and
Destiny’s Child being mixed on the same album as songs like “1985” by Bowling for Soup and “Kryptonite”
by 3 Doors Down?
A: Having them all sung irritating little kids with someone pushing keyboard buttons in the background and calling it music
(I know that’s what some of those bands do anyway, but still) while the kid’s vocals are accompanied by Christian
rock band rejects, all the while taking all the meaning, feeling, and dignity (I know, most of them never had any dignity
anyway, but still) away from the songs by turning them from songs about love and sex into songs about, I don’t know,
playing around with your friends. This phenomenon is the 11 (including Kidz [sic] Bop Christmas, Kidz [sic] Bop Halloween,
Los Kidz [sic] Bop [featuring Spanish songs, of course], and Kidz [sic] Bop Gold, in which the kidz sing along to “the
of the greatest songs of all time!”, including “Yellow Submarine”, “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head,”
and “Hooked on a Feeling”)Kidz [sic] Bop albums, which take already crappy (mostly) pop songs and turn them into
sterile, squeaky clean fun songs for kids. I decided to spare myself the agony and self-torture of actually listing to most
of these “songs” and instead opted for settling for the 30 second snippets of songs on Amazon, and I could just
barely even manage that. Although I’m only guessing here, I would imagine, based on what I’ve heard, that Kidz
[sic] Bop 7’s version of Bowling for Soup’s “1985” probably turns the lyric that go “She thought
she could get a hand on a member of Duran Duran” to something like “She thought she could shake hands with a member
of Duran Duran.” I could only imagine what they do to songs like “Turn out the Lights,” "In the End," “Headstrong”
(Vol. 6) Dilemma (Vol. 3), "Move it Like This" (Vol. 4) and “My Immortal” (Vol. 7).
For me, however, the worst part of this isn’t that they’re cleaning up already hollow pop songs. For me, the
problem is much deeper. Parents are giving these stupid, thoughtless songs to their children and encouraging them to listen.
This coming in the days of no more dodgeball in school, rubber in playgrounds, as opposed to the wood chips we had, kids with
names like “Banjo” and (I saw it at work the other day) “Rogen” (What, was the “R” button
broken on your keyboard, so you had to use an “N” instead??? Crimedy!), and staunch political correctness taking
the place of any real values. Simply put, kids today are becoming spoiled rotten pussies, and this is largely to blame. If
you want you children to hear good, wholesome music, play some Mozart or some Beethoven, there’s absolutely nothing
dirty about them, and as opposed to Kidz [sic] Bop, classical music has been proven to make kids smarter. Or, if that won’t
work, there’s jazz, swing, oldies, bluegrass, most reggae, salsa, folk, show tunes, opera, ect. I find that one of the
great ironies of this whole situation is that as popular music becomes dirtier and more innuendo-filled, we try to censor
it, then give it to kids, who are then going to try to find the real song with all the dirty lyrics, seeing as how those are
being marketed to kids anyway, and hear the real lyrics for themselves, thereby making the whole censoring process completely
useless, turned against its self, and just plain ass-backwards. I also find it ironic that kids are losing their innocence
earlier than ever now, even though they have the luxury of Kidz [sic] Bop, the V-chip, TV ratings, internet filters, the Disney
Channel not being a subscription service, and rubber and foam playground matting. The fact of the matter is, it all reverts
back to the parents. If they buy Kidz [sic] Bop for their children, it shows that they don’t care enough to see that
their children are listening to quality music, so long as it’s clean; society is filtering and censoring, so I don’t
have to. When I was growing up, my dad and I watched “Ren & Stimpy” together on Nick. Can you imagine “Ren
& Stimpy” being on kid’s TV today? “My little Hunter called his sister Madison an ’idiot’!
I’m going to sue Nickelodeon! It’s their fault I’m an irresponsible parent, because they broadcast a so
called children’s program that used the word ‘idiot’ in it!” To quote Bill Walton, “Choke me
with a spoon!” Oh, well, at least there's still SpongeBob. But anyway, getting back to my original point,
if you want your children to be shielded from lyrics such as “sleep with me,” and you want them to only hear good,
quality music, then have them listen to real music, Kidz [sic] Bop will only make things worse. But then again, if you’re
stupid enough to buy it in the first place, then the apple probably won’t fall far from the tree no matter what you
do.
MEANING: If you want a meaning, go to amazon.com, and read the customer
reviews, that'll tell you all you need to know.
-Webamasta Derek K
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