Review Summary: Kidz Bop, Volume 9 isn't even a good album for its target audience; as tempted as you may be to buy it is a joke or gift for a yound child, please don't.
It’s truly impossibly difficult to do a review for a
Kidz Bop album. Why? Because, as a general rule, they really are just compilations. Honestly, you could just take any
Now That’s What I Call Hits!, apply the
Kidz Bop formula, and bam, we now have
Kidz bop XX ready to be shipped and sold. However, there are unfortunate mitigating standards that make this a completely terrible (and, in the end, useless) album to purchase, even on the pretense its essentially a singles collection.
First off is the fact that the singers they hire to “re-dub” all the songs (yes, none of the original vocal tracks are present on the songs) are typically horrendous. The version I have decided to review,
Kidz Bop 9, features songs by traditionally powerhouse singers such as
Mariah Carey,
Kelly Clarkson, and Billie Joel Armstrong (Okay…so maybe not so much the last one). The studio re-enactors they get to recreate these stunning voices are apparently tone deaf, with their pitches frequently faltering halfway through a song. It also doesn’t help that occasionally, songs lyrics are flipped about so as not to offend young children as is the case for
Boyfriend and
Wake Me Up When September Ends, which both deal with topics that a 6-year-old wouldn’t understand anyways.
The next unfortunate misstep this album (and once again,
Kidz Bop in general) takes is the fact the musical aspect of the album is toned down entirely to low. I obviously understand that Timmy, whose only in first grade, probably wont appreciate the intricacies of the guitar solo on
Beverly Hills (although it sucks anyways, so maybe there is a positive to all this…), but by god, you can barely make out any distinguishable instrument (don’t bother trying to pick up any kind of bass-like sound, as it just doesn’t exist in this universe of suck). What makes it even more of a faux-pa is that it means the horrid studio vocalists are shoved into the spotlight even more than they need to be, and on tracks like
Feel Good Inc. that rely on the general atmospherics of the instrumental work, nearly the whole effect of a song is lost, and instead you now get to hear some dude whisper about windmills. An absolute blast for little kids, I’m sure.
Oh, but then there’s the trademark of the
Kidz Bop albums; The little sh
its who run around ruining all the choruses and sing along in the various songs. Now, come on, be honest: if you’ve never sang along to any one of these songs (
Behind These Hazel Eyes,
Cool,
We Belong Together), you’re either A) Not a woman, or B) Heterosexual. With that out of the way, many of these songs, despite their general mediocrity, do have great hooks and memorable choruses to sing along to. So why not add in a bunch of annoying children into the mix? Yes, the trademark of the series returns in full force here, and it’s as annoying as ever. The fundamental flaw with this is no one
wants to hear someone else sing along with a song. Sure, its fun as all h
ell when you do it, but its just obnoxious and altogether useless to hear someone else doing it. Compound that with the fact of these kids just have the most insufferable little kids voices the world has ever seen, and you’ll soon have no reason to doubt why God made plans for there to be an End of Days.
Is there honestly anything redeeming whatsoever about this album? Technically, it does have some memorable singles thrown together. However, the butchering job they’re given, coupled with the fact that the
Now! series both has better selection and doesn’t commit an atrocity to the recording leads this to honestly have no place in any record collection anywhere. Adults will hate it because…well, there’s nothing appealing about it whatsoever. Children will hate it because they’ll get confused by the children’s voices in the song, and most likely ask “Mommy, why are those kids trapped in the magical music box?” Truth be told, this isn’t even good party music for little kids, as the original versions of all these songs suit that perfectly fine. There’s one last speck of hope for the album though…this has to at least be funny to listen to, right? No Johnny, it isn’t. The studio vocals are horrendous, the mix is absolutely atrocious, the child singing is intolerable, and to boot, they didn’t even include a song by
Scott Walker. What little kid doesn’t want to sing along to Scott, huh? No child doesn’t want to do that; and that people, is the Report.
