Just how does Kidz Bop censor songs?
April 28, 2020 6:28 AM Subscribe
Let's find out. (SLThePudding)
4/5. I've got kids who sometimes request the KB version of songs because that's what they first heard at school/daycare. The KB version of "Old Town Road" is funny to me in that they censor "lean all in my bladder" to "ridin' on my bladder" which makes no sense at all. The next line, "cheated on my baby, you can go and ask her" remains in place.
Oh, and they censor "Wrangler on my booty" to "Wrangler like on TV" because you can't use a children's word to describe wearing pants... after cheating on your baby.
posted by onehalfjunco at 7:09 AM on April 28, 2020 [7 favorites]
Oh, and they censor "Wrangler on my booty" to "Wrangler like on TV" because you can't use a children's word to describe wearing pants... after cheating on your baby.
posted by onehalfjunco at 7:09 AM on April 28, 2020 [7 favorites]
Wow. I was legitimately surprised by the larger compare andccontrast at the end of the quiz revealing that the word 'kiss' from ed fucking sheeran is something children need to be protected from.
posted by PMdixon at 7:14 AM on April 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by PMdixon at 7:14 AM on April 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
As noted in the tags, this is more bowdlerization than censorship. Kind of interesting, but I'm not sure I get the point, am I supposed to be outraged? It's just inconsistent, more thought was probably put into this quiz than by the KB cabal deciding what words/phrases needed to be changed in their last 20 recordings combined.
posted by skewed at 7:21 AM on April 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
posted by skewed at 7:21 AM on April 28, 2020 [3 favorites]
I'm still scarred from the Kidz Bop version of "Truth Hurts".
posted by LeDiva at 8:03 AM on April 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by LeDiva at 8:03 AM on April 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
I highly recommend giving the kidz bop version of "Truth Hurts" a listen. It's like a machine for generating double takes.
posted by phooky at 8:11 AM on April 28, 2020
posted by phooky at 8:11 AM on April 28, 2020
I'm pretty sure this is aimed more at generating lulz than outrage. I was satisfied by the amount of lulz.
posted by asperity at 8:14 AM on April 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by asperity at 8:14 AM on April 28, 2020 [4 favorites]
The main thing that I find outrageous is that web designers still haven't figured out how to avoid breaking the back button.
posted by Pyry at 8:29 AM on April 28, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by Pyry at 8:29 AM on April 28, 2020 [7 favorites]
cheated on my baby, you can go and ask her
If you think this should be censored... kids already know about this shit, man. I just found out, naive as I was, that my son stacked the deck in Candyland playing against his sister. He cheated on my baby!
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:45 AM on April 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
If you think this should be censored... kids already know about this shit, man. I just found out, naive as I was, that my son stacked the deck in Candyland playing against his sister. He cheated on my baby!
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:45 AM on April 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
If you're really worried about your kids learning some dirty words, just give them the K.K. Slider versions.
posted by explosion at 8:56 AM on April 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by explosion at 8:56 AM on April 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
True story: in the Before Times, I was out with my girlfriends and we decided we wanted to go to a nearby Bruster's for some ice cream. We get up there, and there is a "flash mob" practicing a dance to the Kidz Bop version of Truth Hurts.
It was SO WEIRD.
And then this kid shows up, it's apparently her birthday, and this motley crew of very uncoordinated kids and adults "spontaneously" do this dance to this very very strange and unsettling version of "Truth Hurts" as the (clearly horrified) birthday girl looked on in a slight panic.
It was honestly kind of amazing.
posted by Medieval Maven at 8:57 AM on April 28, 2020 [12 favorites]
It was SO WEIRD.
And then this kid shows up, it's apparently her birthday, and this motley crew of very uncoordinated kids and adults "spontaneously" do this dance to this very very strange and unsettling version of "Truth Hurts" as the (clearly horrified) birthday girl looked on in a slight panic.
It was honestly kind of amazing.
posted by Medieval Maven at 8:57 AM on April 28, 2020 [12 favorites]
In the UK this is called 'funstering' when done for television showings of films. It comes from when Lethal Weapon was shown in the late 80s with all the 'fuckers' replaced with 'funsters'. So 'motherfucker' became 'muddy funster' and so on. The practice became so ridiculed it was abandoned.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 9:51 AM on April 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by GallonOfAlan at 9:51 AM on April 28, 2020 [5 favorites]
As a kid, in the song All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You, when she sings about making magic I assumed they literally put on a magic show. It seemed like a perfectly normal thing for grown-ups to do.
posted by ckape at 10:15 AM on April 28, 2020 [10 favorites]
posted by ckape at 10:15 AM on April 28, 2020 [10 favorites]
I'm not sure a quiz was called for. Surely, a simple article would have sufficed?
posted by Naberius at 11:13 AM on April 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Naberius at 11:13 AM on April 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
"lean all in my bladder" to "ridin' on my bladder" which makes no sense at all
Maybe they were worried because lean is a drug (codeine + Sprite)...?
For another, earlier example of this kind of thing, BTW, I present to you: Dev2.0, including the version of "Uncontrollable Urge" that's about snacks.
posted by The Tensor at 12:22 PM on April 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
Maybe they were worried because lean is a drug (codeine + Sprite)...?
For another, earlier example of this kind of thing, BTW, I present to you: Dev2.0, including the version of "Uncontrollable Urge" that's about snacks.
posted by The Tensor at 12:22 PM on April 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
Not just earlier, as the OP notes, Kidz Bop has been releasing albums from 2001 to the present day. Which is how you can consider whether there's been trends in Kidz Bop output.
posted by RobotHero at 12:51 PM on April 28, 2020
posted by RobotHero at 12:51 PM on April 28, 2020
So many of the changes make no sense to me.
posted by SisterHavana at 3:46 PM on April 28, 2020
posted by SisterHavana at 3:46 PM on April 28, 2020
Thanks, Metafilter! I am now scarred for life after seeing the Kidz Bop video for "Truth Hurts". A) OMG WTF did they do to the song?? and B) Please tell me kids don't *actually* dress like that these days?!?!
posted by MuChao at 4:43 PM on April 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by MuChao at 4:43 PM on April 28, 2020 [1 favorite]
I've been a fan of Kidz Bop version of pop songs having "mature" topics for a long time. My favorites:
posted by demiurge at 8:57 PM on April 28, 2020
- Thrift Shop: "Now walk into the club like 'What up?! I got a hit song!'"
- Werewolves of London: "Little old lady got a big surprise late last night"
- Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I'm Bored : "We could hang out in the morning, yeah yeah my house's yours"
posted by demiurge at 8:57 PM on April 28, 2020
I wonder about the perspective of kids who grew up listening to these songs when they first hear the original version.
posted by RobotHero at 6:04 AM on April 29, 2020
posted by RobotHero at 6:04 AM on April 29, 2020
As a grouchy and comfortably pompous old gay dude who suddenly ended up co-parenting a kid against any possible predictions of that outcome, I am forever caught up in the shocking realm of unspeakable day-glo horror of culture targeted at kids.
"Jesus fruc—" I used to catch myself saying, with a wince as we'd shop with Little Miss before everything went insular, "Are all kid clothes really this hypergendered glitterbomb bullsnit leaving a trail of microplastics wherever they go?" to the eye-rolling of both Little Miss and her dad, who regards my Baudrillardian inability to just go with the flow when the flow is a river of glitter, a substance I banned from the museums and galleries I oversaw in my former life as an arts management drone. "What if you don't want your kid to dress up as a drag queen princess from outer space?" I add, aware that I am in fact all about drag queens from outer space, but not inhumane monarchies and the habit of training kids that feudalism was glamorous.
Kidz Bop, alas, is the point too far, and reminds me how a generation that cussed and fucked and drank and did drugs have somehow managed to raise a little Kidz Moral Majority, because I live in a progressive area in a blue state and these little Schlaflyz, almost to a person, flinch when they hear a word on their banned list like nudists getting their ass bitten by a particularly large horsefly.
"JOEBIE, they said the C-word!" scowls Little Miss.
I'm thinking it's the real C-word, which even I don't use, not being a misogynist and all, but no, my airing of Bob's Burgers is bothering her because they use the word "crap" relatively frequently. I try to explain to her that this C-word is merely coarse and not actually bad, but every single time it comes up, usually on the tongue of Kristen Schaal, it's flinch, flinch, flinch, like she's being slapped with an invisible hand.
I cannot fathom how or why they have become so desperately thin-skinned about this. She's not under the thumb of religion, in our household or in her mother's household, or even in the community, so I don't know who pinned their little eyelids open for a Ludovico Treatment to get them to experience actual physical revulsion when someone uses the S-word (stupid) or the D-word (dumb).
While I'm working at home, I wear my nice headphones, which sound fantastic, but leak sound, and I've been on a Lizzo bender to counteract the gloom, and I keep finding Little Miss lurking there with her arms folded, glaring.
"Can I be of assistance?" I asked, pulling my headphones down.
"That song has bad words. You should listen to the good version, by Kidz Bop," which she then proceeded to sing to me over the thin sound of the song filtering up from the headphones around my neck, which had me flinching like a captive in a bathrobe listening to Vogon poetry.
What the fucking fuck is that motherfucking soul-destroying garbage that you little idiots are consuming?
I repress a few choice words, and respond.
"Well, that was dreadful."
"Was not."
"It was not a pleasant thing to hear, despite your lovely voice. I think poor Lizzo is probably crying her eyes out in some very fashionable Los Angeles address. Removing the 'bad' words by obliterating the joy in a piece of music is a Pyrrhic victory."
"What's 'Pyrrhic'?" she asks, arms akimbo, and we blissfully escape into a pleasant conversation about such things, and vocabulary in general. I address, now and then, the idea that the only really bad words are those meant to hurt, but I have to just hope that she'll outgrow this ridiculous period.
She wanders off with a sheaf of papers of take-home schoolwork, and I take a moment to go down the Kidz Bop rabbithole of videos that make me feel cozy and comfortable with the possibility that an asteroid might one day wipe out all life on Earth, but in the end, I go back to my Lizzo.
Never been in love before
What the fuck are fuckin' feelings yo?
posted by sonascope at 7:58 AM on April 29, 2020 [6 favorites]
"Jesus fruc—" I used to catch myself saying, with a wince as we'd shop with Little Miss before everything went insular, "Are all kid clothes really this hypergendered glitterbomb bullsnit leaving a trail of microplastics wherever they go?" to the eye-rolling of both Little Miss and her dad, who regards my Baudrillardian inability to just go with the flow when the flow is a river of glitter, a substance I banned from the museums and galleries I oversaw in my former life as an arts management drone. "What if you don't want your kid to dress up as a drag queen princess from outer space?" I add, aware that I am in fact all about drag queens from outer space, but not inhumane monarchies and the habit of training kids that feudalism was glamorous.
Kidz Bop, alas, is the point too far, and reminds me how a generation that cussed and fucked and drank and did drugs have somehow managed to raise a little Kidz Moral Majority, because I live in a progressive area in a blue state and these little Schlaflyz, almost to a person, flinch when they hear a word on their banned list like nudists getting their ass bitten by a particularly large horsefly.
"JOEBIE, they said the C-word!" scowls Little Miss.
I'm thinking it's the real C-word, which even I don't use, not being a misogynist and all, but no, my airing of Bob's Burgers is bothering her because they use the word "crap" relatively frequently. I try to explain to her that this C-word is merely coarse and not actually bad, but every single time it comes up, usually on the tongue of Kristen Schaal, it's flinch, flinch, flinch, like she's being slapped with an invisible hand.
I cannot fathom how or why they have become so desperately thin-skinned about this. She's not under the thumb of religion, in our household or in her mother's household, or even in the community, so I don't know who pinned their little eyelids open for a Ludovico Treatment to get them to experience actual physical revulsion when someone uses the S-word (stupid) or the D-word (dumb).
While I'm working at home, I wear my nice headphones, which sound fantastic, but leak sound, and I've been on a Lizzo bender to counteract the gloom, and I keep finding Little Miss lurking there with her arms folded, glaring.
"Can I be of assistance?" I asked, pulling my headphones down.
"That song has bad words. You should listen to the good version, by Kidz Bop," which she then proceeded to sing to me over the thin sound of the song filtering up from the headphones around my neck, which had me flinching like a captive in a bathrobe listening to Vogon poetry.
What the fucking fuck is that motherfucking soul-destroying garbage that you little idiots are consuming?
I repress a few choice words, and respond.
"Well, that was dreadful."
"Was not."
"It was not a pleasant thing to hear, despite your lovely voice. I think poor Lizzo is probably crying her eyes out in some very fashionable Los Angeles address. Removing the 'bad' words by obliterating the joy in a piece of music is a Pyrrhic victory."
"What's 'Pyrrhic'?" she asks, arms akimbo, and we blissfully escape into a pleasant conversation about such things, and vocabulary in general. I address, now and then, the idea that the only really bad words are those meant to hurt, but I have to just hope that she'll outgrow this ridiculous period.
She wanders off with a sheaf of papers of take-home schoolwork, and I take a moment to go down the Kidz Bop rabbithole of videos that make me feel cozy and comfortable with the possibility that an asteroid might one day wipe out all life on Earth, but in the end, I go back to my Lizzo.
Never been in love before
What the fuck are fuckin' feelings yo?
posted by sonascope at 7:58 AM on April 29, 2020 [6 favorites]
I'm a little embarrassed at how long it took me to understand why the word "man" was being cut so often. What's wrong with singing about the man I love or whateve... oh right. The singer is 12. Good call, Kidz Bop.
posted by arcticwoman at 10:33 AM on April 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by arcticwoman at 10:33 AM on April 29, 2020 [1 favorite]
"Why you great 'til they gotta be great?"
stares
posted by Glier's Goetta at 7:49 AM on April 30, 2020
stares
posted by Glier's Goetta at 7:49 AM on April 30, 2020
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Also: the Kidz Bop versions of 90s Alternative songs are all instrumentals. They didn't do very well.
posted by suetanvil at 7:02 AM on April 28, 2020