The longstanding Kidz Bop franchise has been tampering with some of your favorite hits for 15 years now, changing lyrics and hiking up the pitch of the songs, not to mention the abundance of auto-tune blending done by the producers. With its latest installment “Kidz Bop 32,” I am here to say that it has gone too far. The madness needs to end before this wildfire continues to spread for another 32 albums.
I’m an avid Spotify user (with a kick-ass premium student discount, how could I not be?) and am constantly searching for new music. A typical Friday morning for me consists of checking Spotify and adding a bunch of newly released music to a playlist first thing after I wake up and before facing the world. A few weeks back on a fateful Friday morning, I opened my laptop only to be slapped in the face by the bright cover art for "Kidz Bop 32." I thought nothing of it, passing it off until I was able to have a jaunty laugh about it with my best friend. And then something changed, suddenly I was overcome with curiosity and found myself back on Spotify, clicking on the pop of color cover art and scrolling through the song list.
My problem arose with the first track on the album, DNCE’s “Cake by the Ocean.” “I love that song!” you’re thinking, “Joe Jonas is a dream boat.” This is true, Joe Jonas is no longer a squeaky clean Disney star. The song features a few surprising f-bombs and sexual innuendo. Still we signed up four kids, all of whom could probably have successful starts as Disney stars, to sing about sex on the beach. And not the delicious cocktail either, which is illegal for them anyway.
The next few songs were all choices I was able to stomach. I stepped into the kitchen to make myself some food when I heard the beginning of Rihanna’s “Work” start to play. I dropped my PB&J in shock as I heard what appeared to be a mix of Jamaican speech, Creole and gibberish. I couldn’t get the picture of Rihanna’s double feature music video out of my head. You know the one where she is wearing little to no clothing and is backed up to Drake. I began juxtaposing it with these early teens singing and I couldn’t help but feel like it has been taken too far.
The rest of the album was filled with an eclectic mix of dance hit, hip hop, and Taylor Swift covers (somebody has to keep her innocence afloat). As the album got closer to the end I got more eager to hear it finish, not because of the talent of the singers but because the context of the songs seemed so skewed when sung by kids who can’t even drive themselves to the recording studio. I looked at previous Kidz Bop albums and was not shocked that covering inappropriate songs was common in their repertoire.
So this is where I draw the line, Kidz Bop. This is where I firmly plant my feet on the ground and say "no more." The next time that you’re thinking about putting out another album into the saga, think about the untapped potential in these young kids if they had the opportunity to have someone produce their own songs. There is always room for more pop stars in the world!
