Elementary school kids start singing along to pop music as soon as they can follow the lyrics.
Most of the time, that's just adorable.
Still, every now and then, a word creepsout from the car radio that you wish they hadn'theard. Like during that quiet part in Pink’s “Raise Your Glass,” when Pink mutters, “My glass is empty ... that SUCKS.”
“Pink just said a bad word,” my daughter dutifully reported, upon first hearing the song, way back when.
Never mind that the theme of the song — hard-partying as a form of validation for the “dirty little freaks” of the world — is itself not the best message for little kids to hear. That went over her head. But most kids recognize a well-placed vulgarity, especially when delivered sotto voce like that.
Thanks, Pink.
But I realizeit wasn't Pink’s fault. When my daughter was little, I didn'tblame Ke$ha or Robin Thicke or Frank Sinatra, for that matter. From “Tik Tok” to “Blurred Lines” to “One For My Baby (And One More For The Road),” there are songs that are too mature — or immature — for little kids.
Artists should be free to seek their audience. As parents, it’s our job, not the artists' job, to protect our children from material that kids arenot ready to hear. That’s pretty easy to do, until your oldest child hits elementary school.
At the typical birthday party at a bouncy gym, the music drowns out the squeals and chatter of young guests. This is for the benefit of the bored teenagers who work there. But did you know you can ask for the music to be turned down or off?
I was that kind of a renegade at my daughter’s party in kindergarten, when I brought in the soundtrack to “A Charlie Brown Christmas” and a Raffi CD and asked for the music to be uploaded to the venue’s iPod. My treat. Suddenly, the party was G-rated.
In second grade, at a classmate's birthday party with a karaoke theme, the mom of the birthday boy came up with a clever idea for the party favor: a CD of current pop hits, covered by pre-teen singers. I popped it into the car on the way home and noticed that all questionable lyrics had been modified and made kid-friendly. Ingenious!
That was my introduction to Kidz Bop.
Kidz Bop releases two CDs every year featuring top hits cleaned up and made cute in recordings by a quartetof wholesome tweens. The albums are numbered, reminiscent of “Now That’s What I Call Music” compilations. Kidz Bop also releases themed albums (“Sports Jamz,” etc.) and Halloween and Christmas CDs.
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Kidz Bop takes those shows on the road. The group performed at Sesame Placethis summer to a crowd of bouncing toddlers and cheering elementary schoolchildren. Kidz Bop performsat 3 p.m. Nov. 8 at Count Basie Theatre, 99 Monmouth St., Red Bank. Tickets are $19, $25 and $35, with a limited number of $60 "VIP Meet & Greet" tickets available, through countbasietheatre.org.
Kidz Bop also can be found onchannel 77 on SiriusXM. "Kidz Bop Radio" is devoted to recent Kidz Bop recordings and is hosted by the kids themselves. Kidz Bop videosare all over You Tube.
Since 2010, Kidz Bop has ranked as the No. 1 kids’ artist on the Billboard charts. More than 14 million Kidz Bop CDs have been sold since the brand was launched in 2001.
The New York-based company was founded byCliff Chenfeld and Craig Balsam, who previously founded the Razor & Tiemusic label. Theycame up with the idea in 2001 afterattending birthday parties with their kids.
“Their kids were school-aged, and they saw there was a gap in kids’ music,” said Sasha Junk, senior vice president of marketing for Kidz Bop. “There was tons of Elmo and Barney, or there was Britney Spears and Eminem.”
Kidz Bop aims to fill that gap by giving young listeners the fun of pop music in a more age-appropriate version.
“Kids love to sing along, and they love to hear other kids’ voices,’’ Junk said.
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The Kidz Bop Kids go through a lengthy audition process, as the company seeks a cross-section of American youths who can sing and dance for albums, videos and concerts. The performers remain with Kidz Bop until they “age out” (I’m thinking of that episode of “The Brady Bunch,” in which Peter’s voice begins to change, and he can’t sing anymore) or otherwise move on. The third “generation” of Kidz Bop Kids, who recently released“Kidz Bop 30,” might be graduating to other projects soon, as they now range in age from 12 to 14.
Junk said Kidz Bop strives for geographical diversity among the Kidz Bop Kids, so children throughout the country can relate to them.
The current ensemble features New Jersey’s own Matt Martinez of Guttenberg in Hudson County. At 12years old, Matt is the youngest in the group. He wears Buddy Holly/Elvis Costello glasses and displays a knack for physical comedy in the Kidz Bop videos. The other singers are Ashlynn Chong of Los Angeles, Bredia Santoro of Chicago, and Grant Knoche of Dallas.
Another New Jerseyan, Tina Siciliano of Lincroft in Middletown, was among eight finalists in a Kidz Bop contest in 2012, which offered a recording contract with RCA and a guest spot in a Kidz Bop video.
Matt, a former member of the children’s dance team for the Nets and Knicks, said he knew he wanted to be a performer from the age of 7, when his mom took him to see “The Lion King” on Broadway.
At his mom’s dance studio, Matt studied hip-hop dance. The singing came naturally.
“I’m just always singing, like in the weirdest places, like on the monkey bars at the playground,” Matt said in a phone interview from Dallas, whenhe and the rest of the ensemble began rehearsing for their live shows.
The kids got to know each other on tours, because they recordedtheir parts for the albums in separate sessions. The group sings in unison, though a singer might take a solo line here or there. Matt has a solo in the Kidz Bop version of Bruno Mars’ “Treasure,” but, generally, boys and girls sing the same parts, even though most tracks were recorded by female artists.
“I listen to a lot of Katy Perry songs, and I sing to her songs a lot,” Matt said, “so it wasn’t hard to make that transition in the studio.”
Does he find it awkward that some of the lyrics are changed? Not at all.
“I knew about Kidz Bop before I joined, and I like what they do,” he said. “They take music from the radio and turn it into something for kids.”
Not everyone is enamored of Kidz Bop. Peruse Amazon’s customer reviews, especially for the first few Kidz Bop releases, or any music site and you’ll find lots of disapproval. Some listeners find the musiccorny or inauthentic. "Soccer mom music" is one of the stingingdismissalsout there.Others saythe material isstill inappropriate for children and hasn’t been scrubbed enough. Some of the sharpest criticism on social media comes from teenagers, just beyond the Kidz Bop demographic, who resent that adults and pre-teens have formed an unholy alliance to mess with their music.
Meanwhile, there are blogs a-plenty that say cruddy pop music should be ignored, not re-imagined. Point taken, bloggers, and you are all correct. But they call it “popular music” for a reason. It’s everywhere, and lots of people like it. It’s hard for parents — and kids — to ignore.
The more recent Kidz Bop CDs score near universal acclaim from Amazon reviewers. The intended audience, ages 5 to 12, with a core audience of 7 to 9, seems to get it. The Kidz Bop Facebook page encourages comments from fans with kid-friendly prompts. At one point, the page displayeda photo of Matt with his cat, Shadow, and suggestedto fans, “Tell us about a pet you love!”
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Kidz Bop does not reveal how or why a line is chosen for modification or elimination. But after a few spins, you’d understand the philosophy, even if unspoken: Curse words and racial put-downs are eliminated. "God" is changed to “gosh,”when used as an interjection. References to drugs and alcohol are erased. Guns and violence never enter the picture. Neither does sex.
Therefore, in the Kidz Bop version of “Royals” by Lorde, there are “grass stains” rather than “blood stains,” while “tripping in the bathroom” becomes “singing in the bathroom.”Much better for little kids, even if it makes older people roll their eyes.
For "Kidz Bop 30," thegroup evenmanaged to clean up "Hey Mama," atruly obnoxious,raunchy,but irresistibly catchy songby David Guetta, with Nicki Minaj, Bebe Rexha and Afrojack.This was a tall order, but Kidz Bop turnedthe song into one of camaraderie, with boys and girls singing together.Completely differentlyrics are addedin key places:"Yes, we'll do the cooking, yes, we'll do the cleaning, Plus we keep the music real loud for ya singing."
But itcan get silly at times. In “Treasure,” Bruno Mars sings, “I know that you don’t know it, but you’re fine, sofine.” Kidz Bop changes it to the clunky “but you’re kind, so kind.” Yet the next line is left unaltered: “Oh, girl, I’m gonna show you when you’re mine, all mine.” Now, given the choice between being “fine” or being “mine,” the latterseems more suggestive, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s because of the way Mars says, “fine,” leaning into the word, like, “you’re fine, so fine.”
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Junk could not illuminate the Kidz Bop process for handling sexual innuendo.
“I will have to get back to you on that,” she said.
All this parsing of lyrics made me feel like Tipper Gore. Luckily, some local musicians backed me up when I first started mulling over the issue.
The Atlantic Highlands-based musicans Chris and Jessie Apple joined the “kindie rock” movement by founding Little Rockers, a music school for children. The school offers classes in 13 locations in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, taught by 16 musicians.
“We appreciate that kids are going to gravitate to catchy new music that they hear on the radio,” Chris Apple said in an e-mail. “It’s nice for parents to have an alternative if there are questionable lyrics and their child is younger. We also find that kids enjoy hearing other kids sing songs, like on the Kidz Bop CD’s."
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The Apples are intent on reaching kids through music.
This fall, the Apples released "Yule Be Cool," a kindie-rock holiday album with original material and eclectic covers, including a Beatles-inspired "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer," two Hanukkah tracks, "Feliz Navidad," and Madonna's "Holiday," re-imagined for the season.
’’“Anything that exposes kids to popular music is fine by me,’’ said Danny White, a rock musician and songwriter who owns Beach Music Studios in Belmar. “It’s a good thing, even if you have to cut a corner here or polish a word there. A lot of kids, if they have an older sister or brother, they might already be exposed to music that’s not appropriate for them. But it’s good to err on the side of caution.”
White listened to his share of lascivious rock ’n’ roll as a kid.
“I’m sure I shouldn’t have been singing along to Steven Tyler with my mom right down the hall,” he said. “But kids, especially little kids, just love the sound of popular music, and they don’t care what it’s about. So if you can let them hear the popular songs with slightly different lyrics, they’ll be able to enjoy it and get a taste for it, and then they might start listening to the popular music that’s actually good. From a great song, you can learn a lot. A great song will make you think.”
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White wants kids to learn about musicianship. If Kidz Bop is the means to the end, so be it!
To mark the 10th anniversary of Beach Music Studios this year, White establishedthe Beach Music Studios Scholarship, designed for promising young musicians at BelmarElementary Schoolwhose families cannot affordnew instruments or lessons.The first fundraiser for the scholarship is scheduled for 7 to 10 p.m.,Nov. 21,atBelmar Fishing Club, which is donating the use of the space. The event will feature White's band and special guests. Tickets are $25, available at the studio.
Classes at Little Rockers focus on original material. They also cover classic rock and the occasional Top 40 song, and the Apples have struggled with the age-appropriateness of that material.
“We wondered for years if we should do “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll” by Joan Jett,” Chris Apple said. “We don’t agree with changing a writer’s words so we just repeated a line in the song instead of singing a new line. Same with “Brown-Eyed Girl.” We just took out the part that wasn’t kid-friendly and repeated a part that was and it works out just fine.’’
Do Top 40 songwriters and vocalists mind when Kidz Bop does its thing? Junk said Kidz Bop deals with music publishers to secure recording rights, and she’s heard no complaints.
“I would think they’d like it because it’s a way for these artists to get new fans,” Junk said.
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For "Kidz Bop 30," the group included an original song, "Make Some Noise," which is also the name of the current tour. Needless to say, the song is squeaky clean, upbeat and bouncy, an all-ages anthem.
Mark McNulty of Spring Lake Heights, who teaches music at Beach Music Studios and to special-needs students in Ocean Township, uses Kidz Bop in the classroom as the students wind down at the end of the school day.
“It makes contemporary music, which at times is filled with graphic material and obscenities, accessible,” McNulty said. “I also teach guitar, piano and voice, and a lot of kids ask to play the popular songs, so it’s good to have a clean version.”
McNulty has a son in the Kidz Bop target audience.
“He loves music,’’ McNulty said. “It’s the main way to engage kids to learn about anything.”
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Kindie songwriters engage young listeners by writing about what Apple described as “the real lives of kids.” No drama, but as Apple put it, “the basic things — like the train passing by or a cute puppy or going to the playground. What’s interesting and new to them: They like to jump around, or they just learned to snap. That’s what inspires us.”
My daughter lovedthe Kidz Bop versions of Lady Gaga’s “Applause” and Lana del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness,” two songs with simple choruses and complex themes that sound odd when sung by pre-teens, be they the Kidz Bop Kids or my little one in the back seat. My daughter mumbledthe lyrics she didn'tknow, making up words.
“Did you notice that on the Kidz Bop CD, the words on some of the songs are different than on the radio?” I asked her, one day in the car.
“They are?” she said.
Hmmm, I thought.
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She also loves "Hey Mama," though, thankfully, she does notunderstandwhat Nicki Minaj is saying and hasn't asked. That's a conversation I'm happy to put off for a long time. Meanwhile, there are those handy alternate lyrics. Thanks,Kidz Bop.
Sometimes, even the milder songs take on a different hue when sung by the Kidz Bop kids. Take, for example, the Kidz Bop rendition of Miley Cyrus’ “Wrecking Ball.”
The opening verse is delicate and unaffected, performed as a quiet solo by one of the female Kidz Bop kids. Then the group joins the chorus, forte, in unison: “I came in like a wrecking ball, I never hit so hard in love ...”
They sound sincere rather than jaded. They fell in love in a big, bad way and got their hearts broken! They sound like kids sound when they have a crush, and it all goes wrong. They sound sad and indignant, and alive. They sound young.
