We watch... so you don't have to.
Kidz Bop Drives Father to Violence
Well, that's not quite right. Since I think sex, nudity, cursing, and violence are all okay for kids -- why should they be surprised to learn the world is a pit of degradation and filth when they turn 18? -- I don't have a problem with any of these songs. Beyond purely aesthetic concerns, of course. But then I've got lousy taste in music. I actually like Britney Spears' "Toxic" and Justin Timberlake.
So, to reformulate my research question: I am mystified as to how mainstream America, which rose up en masse to decry Janet Jackson's errant nipple, which allows PAX to flourish, which requires that Maxim be sold from behind the 7-11 counter as if it were "Show Me the Pink" despite my own personal 7-11 being less than 10 miles from Greenwich Village, where I had to explain to my 7-year-old son why he couldn't go into the video store he passed with all the colorful merchandise in the window, I am mystified as to how mainstream America allows anyone to sell these CDs to kids.
Kidz Bop prides itself on being kid-friendly -- the songs are all sung by kids, after all -- and yet I can't figure out how to make the lyrics to Evanesance's "Bring Me to Life" kid friendly: "Save me from the nothing I've become." If you're nothing at age seven, I don't think anyone can save you. And if you're still listening, by the time you get to their second Kidz Bop entry, "My Immortal," you might not care: "Your face it haunts/My once pleasant dreams/Your voice it chased away/All the sanity in me." Which is how I feel when I listen to this music.
Or take "The Ketchup Song" from Las Ketchup. "Many think its brujeria/How he comes and disappears". Indeed.
Both Kidz Bop and NTWICM boast of having Outkast's great song, "Hey Ya!" with its kid-friendly lyrics, "Don't want to meet your daddy/Just want you in my Caddy/Don't want to meet yo' mama/Just want to make you cumma".
Kidz Bop 6 raises the stakes with a little number from Maroon 5, "This Love": "I tried my best to feed her appetite/Keep her coming every night/So hard to keep her satisfied" and "My pressure on your hips/Sinking my fingertips/Into every inch of you/Cause I know that's what you want me to do". Kid friendly as in explaining how one goes about making kids, yes. Kid friendly as in something kids can understand and relate to, perhaps not so much.
NTWICM counters with the Black Eyed Peas and "Hey Mama," which is brilliant in its subtle exploration of adult sexual relationships, as exemplified by the lyric "The girlies in the club with the big plump plumpas/And when I'm makin' love, my hip hump humps/It never quits we need to carry nine millimeter clips/Don't wanna squize triggers, just wanna squize tits". Certainly there's something about being direct and to the point. Of course, it's okay, because "The true niggers know that the peas come through."
Both CD lines cover Britney "Toxic" Spears, who sings, "It's getting late/To give you up/I took a sip/From my devil's cup".
Kidz Bop, at least, wouldn't even touch Nina Sky and her "Move Ya Body": "I lick my lips while I'm feeling you/Now I'm going to make you go/Ohhh move ya body girl makes the fellaz go/It's the way you ride it girl makes the fellaz go." The fellaz do, in fact, go, yes: They go to Now That's What I Call Music, which allows this sort of thing.
I imagine the versions on these CDs are edited in some way. But then I figure the songs would all sound like every hip-hop song I hear on the radio. All of them have every reference to sex, drugs, and violence removed, and they all sound like this: "Hey...on my...with...at the...other... with your...hey! What...near...on top...yeah! Yeah!" Which always makes me wonder why anyone bothers putting these songs on the radio. It's like TBS running "Deep Throat" on Saturday morning. "Next up: 'Behind the Green Door' starring Marilyn Chambers, starting at 11:30. Then, at 11:38, 'The Devil in Miss Jones.'"
In any case, my kids now have learned enough to sing this much of "This Love": "This love blah blah blah!"
If I never write for TeeVee again, it will be because I heaved my television out the window.
