The Kidz Bop business model is ridiculously simple yet effective, targeting pre-teens with "kid-friendly" versions of the latest pop hits - "sung by kids for kids," as they put it on the CD cover.
So instead of Britney singing, "If you want this good bitch/Sicker than the remix/Baby, let me blow your mind tonight," the latest "Kidz Bop" album, "Kidz Bop 20," has a young girl singing, "If you want this good dish/Sicker than the remix/Baby, come on wave your hands tonight."
She also substitutes the words "This girl" for "kitten" because - as every pre-teen knows - the word kitten is loaded with sexual innuendo.
Not that you could use a word like "loaded" on a "Kidz Bop" album, where Jamie Foxx would have to blame it on the Pixy Stix.
And that's all fine and good, I guess, although it could be pointed out that pre-teens wouldn't know these songs unless their parents let them listen to the "kid-unfriendly" versions on the radio or YouTube.
But the Kidz Bop Kids have clearly crossed a line with Lady Gaga's "Born This Way," the lead-off track on "Kidz Bop 20," stripping Gaga's heartfelt gay-pride anthem of all references to homosexuality.
This is exactly the sort of scenario that makes a song like "Born This Way" so depressingly relevant.
I'm not saying you should force a kid to sing, "Don't be a drag/Just be a queen," although it would be kind of cute. But you're stripping the song of its message when you lose the verse where Gaga lays it on the line with "No matter gay, straight or bi/Lesbian, transgendered life/I'm on the right track, baby/I was born to survive."
There's nothing subtle about Lady Gaga's message there. And for the "Kidz Bop" people to remove that message from the song is nothing less than homophobic.
Gaga needs to take a stand against the Kidz on this one. There's nothing "kid-friendly" about discouraging acceptance of gay people.
So, "sung by kids for kids", meaning that being LGBT or anything othe than STRAIGHT here (even though they even removed saying 'straight') isn't for kids? The **** is this?
I remember when they totally ruined Alejandro...
"I'm not your girl... I'm not your girl... Fernando... Don't wanna miss, don't want too much... Roberto".... Laawd.