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Kidz Bop may be one of the most successful children’s groups of all time, as a collective of child performers known for putting out G-rated covers of hit songs (and the commercials for these songs that people who grew up in the 2000s have memorized). They have released dozens of albums and completed several tours, the latest of which is coming to the Will Rogers Auditorium in Fort Worth on Saturday, Nov. 25.
The Kidz Bop Kids also get mercilessly shit on. Not by their intended audience of children, of course, but by adults who think the censored versions of the songs are stupid. What part of “by kids, for kids” don’t they understand?
Call us softies, but we feel the need to come to their defense a bit. Sure, the arrangements may be a little cringe for our sophisticated grownup tastes, but these kids are pretty talented and deliver solid performances on some of their covers. Here are a few that we think showcase the best the Kidz Bop Kids have to offer. (We’ve also embedded a playlist with all the songs mentioned here. Our Spotify algorithm is all out of whack now, and we think yours should be too.)
1. “Fancy” by Iggy Azalea
The creative liberties Kidz Bop has taken with this cover actually really work. For one thing, they chose to skip the first verse and launch straight into the chorus, fully knowing it’s the only part of the song people actually like. As for the rapping, it’s honestly not worse than Iggy Azalea’s. And in a rare twist, some of the lyrics they changed to make the song suitable for children were actually improvements, with “my flow retarded” being swapped with “my flow just solid.” Even kids know there was no need to use the R-word in the original.
2. “Boy With Luv” by BTS, featuring Halsey
This is a fun, bouncy song that lends itself well to singing along. If you speak Korean, that is, and the Kidz Bop Kids apparently do. Kidz Bop has a worldwide reach, and their Spotify offers songs in several languages, including Spanish, French, German and, of course, Korean. The more likely explanation for this is that they have multiple groups around the world, but it’s more fun to believe that these kids are multilingual prodigies.
3. “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I
There is not a single parent on Earth who wouldn’t prefer to put on this version for their kid instead of the original. Not because there’s anything offensive about the lyrical content, but because Tones and I probably has the most grating voice on pop radio in recent memory. There was nowhere to go but up.
4. “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush
“Running Up That Hill” was released in 1985, but it experienced a massive resurgence in popularity after being appearing in the fourth season of Stranger Things. In the avalanche of Kate Bush covers that dropped last year, the Kidz Bop one stands out not for being that good, but because we admire their audacity and the commitment to keeping up with hit songs, no matter how out of left field they are. We’re also highly amused that the Kidz Bop Kids, who frequently swap out “oh my god” for “oh my gosh” to avoid offending religious parents, are singing “And if I only could / I’d make a deal with God” with their full chests on this one.
5. “Happy” by Pharrell
This song was conceptualized to be sung by children. It was written for the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack, after all, and has backing vocals that would be easy to adapt for a show choir arrangement. That being said, if you had to go to your kid’s choir concert and they performed “Happy” with the same showmanship as the Kidz Bop Kids, you’d think they were pretty good. (That’s our metric for most of these entries, by the way: “Would this be tolerable at a choir concert?”)
6. “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by the Beatles
The Kidz Bop Kids dropped an entire album called Kidz Bop Sings the Beatles, and it is exactly as hit and miss as it sounds. The highlight is “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” a song that’s sweet and innocent enough to sound like it could be from a kid’s perspective. That’s more than can be said about most of their covers. (We’re looking at you, “Cake by the Ocean.” Removing “goddamn” and “fuck” didn’t fix anything.)
7. “FourFiveSeconds” by Rihanna, Kanye West and Paul McCartney
Rihanna is a tough act to live up to, but the kids who sing her parts on this cover actually sound pretty good and put a lot of emotion into it. It’s easy to imagine them thinking about gym class or math class while belting out “I think I’ve had enough.” As for the kids who sang West’s part, the bar was pretty low already.
8. “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” by Justin Timberlake
Go back and read the “Happy” entry again but replace Despicable Me 2 with Trollz. All the same principles apply.
9. “Sweet Nothing” by Calvin Harris, featuring Florence Welch
As anyone who lost their voice trying to yell along to this at their senior prom can tell you, this is not an easy song to sing. We have to give these kids their flowers for hitting those high notes on the chorus because most of us sure as hell can’t. At least not without consequences. For what it’s worth, the backing track isn’t a bad dupe either. We can’t tell if that says more about the skill of Kidz Bop’s producer or the blandness of Calvin Harris.
10. “Say Something” by A Great Big World, featuring Christina Aguilera
This is a genuinely nice arrangement where the kids deliver solid vocal harmonies. We don’t even have a joke for it besides the fact that we had to Google who sang it first.
@dallas_observer We broke down 10 Kidz Bop songs that aren’t complete garbage at dallasobserver.com (link in bio) #wineaunt #kidzbop #meme #dallastx #dallasobserver original sound – Dallas Observer
