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You know what I don't get? Kidz Bop.
Here's the deal:
You take a sampling of recent chart-toppers. Songs old enough that you're getting a little sick of hearing them every 20 minutes on the radio, but new enough that it'll be a fair while before they're old favorites.
Then, you round up a bunch of kids and stick them in a recording studio. You get them to do cover versions of the aforementioned chart-toppers, which no doubt means recording and rerecording for who knows how long, while all the while telling the kids they have to be cheerful and energetic.
What you end up with is a bunch of kids pretending to be happy, belting out songs you didn't really feel like hearing, and doing it with half-trained and still developing voices.
And what about the songs they're singing? Well, a recent album featured Bowling For Soup's nostalgic chart-topper, "1985." It's a song about this girl. She wanted to be a groupie. She wore snakeskin miniskirts and chased rockstars and dreamed about being the eye candy writhing on the hood of their cars. Now it's 20 years later, and she's a soccer mom who, when it comes to modern pop culture, finds herself confused, disoriented, and out of touch. The lyrics reminisce about the fads of the time. The chorus reminds you that her kids are in high school and think she's uncool because she's preoccupied with 1985.
Got that? Now they've got kids singing it. Kids who weren't even born until the mid-90s. Kids who have no idea what "Whitesnake" was. Kids singing about snakeskin miniskirts and being rock and roll groupies.
They've got plenty of "love songs" on there, too, which have even more inappropriate lyrics and themes.
And yet... they're selling enough of these CDs that they can afford to advertize them on TV. They've already put out 9 albums.
I just don't get it.
Here's the deal:
You take a sampling of recent chart-toppers. Songs old enough that you're getting a little sick of hearing them every 20 minutes on the radio, but new enough that it'll be a fair while before they're old favorites.
Then, you round up a bunch of kids and stick them in a recording studio. You get them to do cover versions of the aforementioned chart-toppers, which no doubt means recording and rerecording for who knows how long, while all the while telling the kids they have to be cheerful and energetic.
What you end up with is a bunch of kids pretending to be happy, belting out songs you didn't really feel like hearing, and doing it with half-trained and still developing voices.
And what about the songs they're singing? Well, a recent album featured Bowling For Soup's nostalgic chart-topper, "1985." It's a song about this girl. She wanted to be a groupie. She wore snakeskin miniskirts and chased rockstars and dreamed about being the eye candy writhing on the hood of their cars. Now it's 20 years later, and she's a soccer mom who, when it comes to modern pop culture, finds herself confused, disoriented, and out of touch. The lyrics reminisce about the fads of the time. The chorus reminds you that her kids are in high school and think she's uncool because she's preoccupied with 1985.
Got that? Now they've got kids singing it. Kids who weren't even born until the mid-90s. Kids who have no idea what "Whitesnake" was. Kids singing about snakeskin miniskirts and being rock and roll groupies.
They've got plenty of "love songs" on there, too, which have even more inappropriate lyrics and themes.
And yet... they're selling enough of these CDs that they can afford to advertize them on TV. They've already put out 9 albums.
I just don't get it.