Ok, so let me explain here! I have had this post partially done for years but just never bothered to finish it until now. So the majority of these reviews were written a few years back with the exception of Kidz Bop 10. Hope you still enjoy them and I hope to release part 3 soon.
Kidz Bop 6
The Reason by Hoobastank
I actually owned Kidz Bop 6 as a kid so I couldn’t really choose a song I had never heard. But I chose The Reason because I remember this song being on the radio all the time back in the day but I could not remember what the Kidz Bop version sounded like and was curious because this is one of those songs I couldn’t imagine sounding right with kids’ voices. And boy did I hit the nail on the head with that one!! Ok maybe it’s not as unbearable as the Cheetah Girls song I reviewed in part 1 but it’s still pretty bad. The kid’s voices are really high pitched for some reason and sound like a bad version of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Then the guy they are singing with is really not much better at all. His pitch is all over the place and he clearly does not have the vocal range for this song. There were also parts where I thought he wasn’t putting any effort into the singing and just sounded well bored and like he didn’t want to be in the recording studio with those kids and I can’t say I blame him with how annoying the kids voices sounded. The only good part of the song is the arrangement and instrumentation. Minus the singing it sounds very much like the original. Overall I will give it a rating of a 3. Not as bad as the Cheetah Girls song, the instrumentation sounds like the original but the singing is just not great.
Kidz Bop 7
The Pieces of Me by Ashlee Simpson
I chose to review this song because it was my favorite at age 12 but I never knew Kidz Bop did it and since Ashlee Simpson has such a unique voice, I couldn’t imagine Kidz Bop doing a decent version. But honestly it wasn’t too bad. The girl they chose to sing with the kids had a unique tone to her voice as well which can especially be heard in the first verse and she actually sounded pretty good. But at the same time I almost felt like she recorded that after doing an intense workout. It was very breathy and lacked consistency, especially in the chorus. I think if she had relaxed a little more and learned to sustain her breathing, it would have sounded a lot better. The kids weren’t too bad on this one and mainly served as backup on the chorus. Overall I give this one a 5, not too bad but not the greatest either.
Kidz Bop 8
Vertigo by U2
I chose this song with my mom in mind because she is a big U2 fan and used to play this song in the car all the time back in the day so I am pretty familiar with the original. Because U2 has such a distinctive sound, I was fully expecting this cover to be unbearable and not sound right with kid’s voices. However, I was pleasantly surprised. The adult singer in this one actually sounded fairly similar to Bono of U2 and did a good job with this song in making it sound like the original. The kid singers mainly served as backup and only sang on the chorus part. I thought they blended nicely with the adult singer and didn’t sound too annoying on this one. Although I could have done without them shouting, “Hola!” and “Turn it up loud!” during the instrumental solos. A little unnecessary but overall a pretty solid cover. I would give this one a 9. Sounds like the original and would be great to play for kids.
Kidz Bop 9
Just the Girl by The Click Five
This one actually started out pretty good. The adult singer wasn’t the best singer in the world and had a very simple, plain sounding voice with no vibrato, grit or anything fancy. But the original singer has a pretty straight voice as well so I felt like that kind of fit the song, plus the song doesn’t exactly require a huge vocal range either. So I felt like the adult singer did a good job singing this song. However, things took a turn for the worst when the kid singers joined in on the chorus. They were high pitched and just didn’t really sound right singing lyrics about being in love with a girl. I mean they are probably too young to have experienced that and having them sing about being in love just didn’t seem very age appropriate to me. The other problem I had was the second verse. The kids were repeating the lyrics after the adult singer on the instrumental lines and sometimes even shouting them. I found this to be very annoying and unnecessary because the original only had a quick instrumental riff at those parts. Overall, I would give this one a 5. Not horrible, sounds close to the original but this is just one of those songs that doesn’t sound right with kids voices.
Kidz Bop 10
Bad Day by Daniel Powter
This was definitely a very popular song back in the day and was actually used on American Idol season 5 whenever someone got eliminated. So this is a song I have heard numerous times and I was very interested in hearing the Kidz Bop rendition of it. And honestly it wasn’t a horrible rendition but wasn’t great either. The kids yelling “woo” at the beginning kind of caught me off guard at first because there is nothing like that in the original recording. This is supposed to be more of a slow ballad with more of a sad tone, because after all it’s about a bad day right? So having kids cheerfully yelling “woo” and “yeah” throughout was just annoying and did not work for this particular song. The adult singer they had on here was actually pretty good. I mean he did lack the range of Daniel Powter in certain spots but overall he did a good job. But the best part of the song for me was instrumentation. It was spot on with the piano part and was a great recreation of the original. Overall I would say this is pretty solid average track, it gets a 6 from me.
