Cougar Chronicle

Welcome to Adrie’s beats of the week, a weekly column dedicated to remarking upon the intricacies of modern music. To submit any songs for entry, please contact [email protected], with the subject line, ‘beats of the week.’

This week we are introducing the five star rating system, I like it for a lot of reasons, but mainly because star rating reviews are funny. This week, Kidz Bop gets two stars from me, but five stars for personality, or lack thereof.

My mom really, really loves Kidz Bop. I could go into a whole host of reasons why, but the main point is that I have listened to a lot of it. I don’t know much about the guy who spearheaded it, but he must have known someone exactly like my mom, and known that he could make a whole lot of money off of rewriting music and dancing children in aggressively neon outfits.

I understand that the point of it is that the songs are “clean,” but the idea of having a bunch of heavily auto tuned kids kidz sing them, never would have occurred to me. It is confusing, and fascinating at the same time, and apparently Zendaya was a Kidz Bop kid?

I however, was incredibly curious about the quality of the remakes, their similarity to the originals, and also just what in the world goes on in the Kidz Bop environment. I am sure that nobody is vigilantly waiting for my Kidz Bop 2022 review, but here it is anyway (there were way more songs in total than I wanted to listen to, so I picked a selection of the ones I thought best).

1. “Drivers License”:

I was not wrong about the auto tune, this might be one of the most auto tuned things I have ever heard. I am guessing that maybe it is just a Kidz Bop thing. I am not sure how many kidz are singing in this song, but they switch like every three words, and it is a little disorienting.

I didn’t notice any big lyric changes in this one, but the jump into the bridge isn’t quite as cool. One of our editors Rosalie wrote a wonderful review of the actual song, and I would highly recommend reading that.

2. “Put Your Records On”

I am vastly confused by this one, because the song was already a song before the Ritt Momney cover, and the only word they changed was “bar” to “place.” I guess they don’t want the kidz knowing about the bars by the roadside. I shouldn’t make fun though, this song can’t be ruined by anything, and I even danced to it a bit.

3. “Levitating”

This version is what I imagine the kidz these days listen to at middle school dances. Or maybe if there was a particularly intense dancing scene in a Disney Channel original movie. I don’t particularly like it, but it’s not as offensive as I thought it was going to be.

4. “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”

This one, understandably so, went through much change; I always like when the lyrics get so changed that they don’t make very much sense anymore. I can’t quote the original lyric,

but I like the change to “you’re cool enough to hang with me tonight,” Kidz Bop is obviously for the coolest of the fifth graders only; a good job is done of subtly enforcing toxic social norms.

But if I am going to be totally honest here, I would never listen to the original song, and might even be more likely to listen to this version. But probably not. This does make me wonder though, if Kidz Bop is less for those fifth graders, and more for their parents; the parents who think they’re really hip.

5. “POV”

I did notice that this was the only song from Positions that they did, which I thought… made sense actually. The only thing that they changed in this one was “ugly too” to “attitude,” which made less sense to me. The main trend seems to be just making all of the songs more intense, like Jo Jo Siwa versions of themselves.

6.“Deja Vu”

I’m not really sure of the criteria for being a Kidz Bop kid, but I am starting to get the feeling that being able to sing is not actually on the list. The amount of auto tune is overwhelming; they almost made it a little bit space alien-esque. I love the original song, and the lyrics didn’t even get changed much, so I would very much just listen to that.

7. “Heat Waves”

Don’t listen to this. They didn’t even change any lyrics, and where the original is addictive and a little otherworldly, this one is nightmarish and I don’t even think kidz would like it.

8. “Holy”

First off, they skipped the whole rap part, which in my humble opinion was the best part of the original song. Though, I don’t think rapping abilities can be faked as easily as singing. I didn’t like the original song very much as a whole, so I’m probably not the best person to compare them, but I can’t imagine the Beliebers being very happy about it anyways. My unsolicited opinion: both are not that great.

Obviously I think their covers are questionable, but I still think that Kidz Bop is kind of a genius idea, and if they offered to make me a Kidz Bop kid… I like to think I would say no. It is the kind of genius idea though, that you make an inside joke with your friends, and never publicly admit to it. I have much admiration for these people, and their adamant bravery.

I may come back and review more of these, and I have an inkling that previous years are better. Also if anyone could hook me up with the Kidz Bop clothing line, that would be much appreciated.