Music to whose ears?

I readily admit to buying a lot of stupid and worthless crap over my tenure as a parent. Fad toys that were popular for -8 seconds, expensive video game systems….Moon Sand. But there is one item that has never crossed my Target cart, and that’s a KidzBop album.

You’re familiar with this little gem--it’s the CD that features a bunch of unknown children “singing” pop songs, because there’s nothing quite like six year-olds reminding you that if you liked it you should have put a ring on it. Off key.

Now I’m not judging, but who exactly does this music appeal to? As an adult, I get kid karaoke every day from the back seat of my car from children I have given birth to without paying $14.99 +shipping and handling. My kids have no use for this--they really want Miley Cyrus singing a Miley Cyrus song, not Mrs. Frankenberger’s fourth grade remedial music class.

And yet, we are on KidzBop 17! That means this has been successful enough to warrant seventeen different versions of this Top 40 kindergarten chorus.

I just don’t get it. Some lyrics to these popular songs are pretty catchy when sung by Beyonce on the radio, but don’t translate all that well to an elementary school sing-along. When I hear a pre-pubescent voice croon out that they want to party like a rockstar, it’s awkward. Not to mention creepy.

So this all begs two very important questions: besides the parents of Mrs. Frankenberger’s fourth graders and people who want all of their favorite songs destroyed in a school Christmas pageant gone horribly, horribly wrong; who exactly is buying this?

(Question number two is more rhetorical: when five year-olds are singing about “trippin’ wit da Osbournes,” is this before or after their naps?)

Ok, maybe I am judging just a little.

(Cross-Posted on Whoa Momma of the St. Pete Times)