So for the past few years I've been wondering about something. I can't seem to get away from the Kidz Bop advertisements on television, and every so often it seems that they have songs on there with incredibly inappropriate lyrics for their target (child) audience.
Supposedly, they change the lyrics for the songs, to remove any offensive content. For many of the songs on their list, though, if you remove the 'offensive content,' you no longer have a song. Take, for instance, Sean Kingston's 'Beautiful Girl:' "You've got me suicidal, suicidal ..." That's the whole goddamned song. Take that out, and none of the rest of it makes sense.
So this morning, I did some research, including downloading an MP3 of the Kidz Bop version of Hinder's 'Lips of an Angel.' If you live in the US - or Canada - you have almost certainly heard the original version of this song on the radio, as it was nearly impossible to escape from back about a year or so ago. It's a song about cheating on ones' current girlfriend with one's ex-girlfriend.
The lyrics to the original song are listed below:
So. In what way was this song edited to make its content suitable for children? One word was changed. Faithful was replaced by Grateful. That's it. The whole story about cheating is still intact, except that ... it's not hard to be faithful anymore ... it's hard to be grateful. Which makes no sense.
Anyway. It's sure as hell that my kid (he's seven) ain't ever getting any of this crap.
(Incidentally, even my cats found the Kidz Bop crap completely objectionable - as soon as the mp3 started playing, they both started biting me and my laptop.)
Supposedly, they change the lyrics for the songs, to remove any offensive content. For many of the songs on their list, though, if you remove the 'offensive content,' you no longer have a song. Take, for instance, Sean Kingston's 'Beautiful Girl:' "You've got me suicidal, suicidal ..." That's the whole goddamned song. Take that out, and none of the rest of it makes sense.
So this morning, I did some research, including downloading an MP3 of the Kidz Bop version of Hinder's 'Lips of an Angel.' If you live in the US - or Canada - you have almost certainly heard the original version of this song on the radio, as it was nearly impossible to escape from back about a year or so ago. It's a song about cheating on ones' current girlfriend with one's ex-girlfriend.
The lyrics to the original song are listed below:
Hinder said:
So. In what way was this song edited to make its content suitable for children? One word was changed. Faithful was replaced by Grateful. That's it. The whole story about cheating is still intact, except that ... it's not hard to be faithful anymore ... it's hard to be grateful. Which makes no sense.
Anyway. It's sure as hell that my kid (he's seven) ain't ever getting any of this crap.
(Incidentally, even my cats found the Kidz Bop crap completely objectionable - as soon as the mp3 started playing, they both started biting me and my laptop.)
