I keep seeing these advertisements on TV for an album collection called “Kid’s Bop.” What it is: the latest pop songs, sung by kids.
Why the hell would this be a seller? Wouldn’t you want to just buy the originals? Even for little kids, what’s the point? And as my cousin pointed out, you have these little kids singing songs that aren’t really FOR little kids.
I think they had something like that when I was a kid but it was called something even lamer like Tiny Pops or something. It appeals to nine year olds. I think it’s less threatening for kids somehow to hear someone younger singing. Adult pop stars are dark and scary in a way, even if their songs are good.
There was a TV show in the 80s/90s called “Kidsongs”. Same premise, but in a video format. They mostly did kid oriented songs (“Old MacDonald” and so forth), but they would throw in an old rock song (“Sea Cruise”) on occassion. Of course, some rewriting would be necessary. In “Sea Cruise” they had to remove the line “I got to boogie woogie like a knife in the back.”
They’ve been doing this for years.
Kids respond better to different types of sound, I think.
There is something ineffable about a six year-old belting out House of the Rising Sun, let me tell you.
Incontrovertable sign of the Apocalypse #459:
Haley Joel Osment belting out Britney Spears’ Toxic.
To make matters worse, I think they actually spell Kids with a ‘z’ <shudder>.
I’m not sure if your knowingly joking, but Toxic is on Kidz Bop 6! Also “dance remixes” from #1 and #4!
#3 has a POD cover. I’m quite unhip, but from what I know, that should break the goofy meter, right?
I’ll quote an Amazon reviewer:
“There are many songs on the radio today that I don’t allow my eight-year-old daughter to listen to, basically because of the language and some of the songs content. But with the Kidz Bop CDs she can keep up with today’s popular songs and I don’t have to worry about the language or content. I am not sure why so many people wrote such horrible reviews of the CD but they clearly don’t get the point of the album and the fact that it is made for kids who are too young to hear the actual songs but still want to keep up with todays hits.”
Yeah 8 year olds gotta keep up!
“But with the Kidz Bop CDs she can keep up with today’s popular songs and I don’t have to worry about the language or content.”
Frankly, as far as I’m concerned, the only album children under 10 should be allowed to listen to is Raffi’s opus, ‘Bananaphone.’
Also, it’d be mandatory.
Cellular, modular, interactiv-odular… 
At eight/nine years old I was still listening to my parents’ music: Beach Boys, the Beatles, Chuck Berry, whatever was on the Oldies radio station. I am so ashamed I was never able to “keep up” to the happening sounds of New Kids on the Block when I did. 
Kids Bop sounds like the worst thing ever to me, but of course I’m 26 and a musician, and I take music very seriously. When I was little, my parents had me listening to “children’s music”–Disney albums, Sesame Street stuff, folksy songs turned into “kids’ songs,” often sung by children. To me, this seems like a waste of many formative years for children, when they could be getting exposed to REAL music from the beginning of their lives, developing an understanding and an appreciation for real talent and real performers.
I’d be especially interested in what parents with younger children have to say to my idea, particularly if they themselves are truly “music listeners.” I personally don’t see anything wrong with starting young kids out listening to “easy” stuff like oldies, or perhaps classical or big band swing as opposed to the inanity of Kids Bop. Hell, content aside, I’d be much more comfortable with children of my own listening to the real pop songs by the original artists. But I don’t have kids of my own, and the idea isn’t terribly appealing to me right now. I just know that if I ever did, getting them interested in music early on and for the rest of their lives would be a high point on my agenda as a parent, and “children’s music” would not have a place in our home.
I must be a hardened, grizzled veteran, as I was allowed to listen to the current music on the radio, uncensored, with my tender young ears – and it was good for me, cos at the age of 9 or 10, in 1974 or 5, when I first heard this ‘Hustle’ I said to mum, ‘Crikey this is bollix’ (not quite in those same words), and Top 40 and I parted company.
[crotchety old lady]
Kids’er soft these days!
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As I will hopefully be a parent by the end of the year, this kind of thing has been popping in my head a lot. My brother and his wife are using a lot of the music from The Wiggles and my niece loves it.
I however am wanting to musically keep my daughter-to-be from anything that panders to such a young age (which I guess seems a little odd). I was thinking there is enough music that I like that is clean and fun and I would have to believe would be enjoyable for kids, stuff like They Might Be Giants, Devo, B-52, Presidents of the USA, Marilyn Manson (just kidding), etc.
Of course I’m also going to buy the SchoolHouse Rocks DVD as well so they can actually learn while they listen to their music.
I’m having trouble finding any documentation of the altered lyrics, but I saw the commercial the other night, and I just have to say that, if I EVER hear a kiddie chorus singing “I tried my best to feed her appetite, to keep her coming every night, so hard to keep her satisfied,” from Maroon 5’s This Love (which is on that CD), I htink I’ll barf out my toenails.
Don’t forget “Weird Al” Yankovic. 
I don’t have any kids, but when I heard those kids belting out “Toxic” I was horrified. I’m not sure if there is any offensive lyrics in the song, but for me the sexual imagery of the video was enough make my spider sense tingle.
I was actually thinking about starting a thread.
Kidz Bop covers you’ll never hear… Or will you?
It’s gettin hot in herrre by Nelly
Bad Girls by Donna Summer
Alone Again, Naturally by Gilbert O’Sullivan
We have about three of the Kidz Bop CDs. They are mostly harmless, IMO. The lyrics are occasionally watered down, and there are some songs that I think perhaps no one understood what the original subject matter was, but kids don’t really “get” the meaning of lyrics most times. Maybe later they will kick in? We have them because of a very long car trip with bored kids. The first couple of CDs I bought them were ABBA and Carpenters, since I figured those were catchy and still fairly okay for kids. The Kidz Bop ones came about because of the commercials, I think, but the Shibblets actually prefer hearing the KB ones to the actual songs. In full disclosure they also get a decent amount of classical, jazz, opera and just regular “pop” or alternative music. Lately my son (he’s six) likes to sing along with “The Star Spangled Banner” at the beginning of sports events. I think that they play it in school every day down here.
Oh, and both of my kids know at least the chorus to the Nelly song that Archmichael mentioned. I’m fairly sure they think it’s about when the A/C is out so you should take some clothes off and stay cool. 
Heh. I love that song!
And, I pretty much agree. I don’t see why a parent would choose to get the kidz into listening to Brittney Spears early, when there are so many other options for music that’s more interesting, more fun, and less about promoting a sex object (Ms. Spears et al). It’s nothing but a thinly veiled attempt by record companies to begin marketing commercial music to young kidz.
And, Big Bad Voodoo Lou, as another 20-something professional musician, I wouldn’t so quickly write off Sessame St and other ‘childrens’’ music as not important or not good. A lot of it is great music, and some of it is even great lyrically. Heck, I could list off twenty or so Sessame St./Muppet songs that are incrediably well-crafted, well performed songs that don’t deserve the brush-off you seem to be giving ‘childrens’ music’. There’s a huge world of difference between pre-school songs recorded onto an album with young people singing it (how much is that doggy in the window, london bridge, etc) and other music written with younger sensabilities in mind.
Don’t forget, “Silent-E” and “L-Y” came from the pen of Tom Lehrer.