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| I don't think the small things blink-182 were talking about were the kids. |
I'm
not really sure what I was expecting from a Kidz Bop song. My first
thought was that the “sung by kids, for kids” tagline they always
touted meant that children were the focus of these songs. In reality,
not so much. They're the focus of the song in the same way that
lettuce is the focus of a hamburger. Yes, it's there, but you're so
focused on everything else that it hardly crosses your mind.
The
whole idea of Kidz Bop is certainly a weird one. The idea that I
would like a regular pop song better if it were sung by kids way
always puzzling. When I started listening to radio back when I was
far too young to be listening to radio, the fact that the songs were
all sung by people far older than me never crossed my mind. I still
enjoyed listening to Alternative rock and 1980s pop music despite the
age difference.
At
the same time, I was being barraged with Kidz Bop ads twice a year.
Now, you would think that all this constant exposure to them on
Nickelodeon would lead a young, impressionable lad like me to pester
my parents to buy a Kidz Bop CD. Ironically, the result of all the
money the company spent advertising on Nickelodeon just amounted to
me not caring. I doubt children today are much different... kids
still watch network television and pester their parents to buy CDs,
right?
The
song they're covering is by blink-182, who got famous back in the
late 1990s and early 2000s for playing a really polished version of
pop punk, and more recently for their old lead singer Tom DeLonge
leaving the band to chase aliens. Although I'm not big into the pop
punk scene, I really do love blink-182. Their polished sound really
made them stand out (as opposed to the dozens of later bands who
ripped them off), and the lyrics are very relatable. So that's why
this cover version is so painful. They took a classic song from a
great pop-punk band, and made it worse. So you might say that I don't
have high hopes...
Let's
get this monstrosity of a review started...
Right
off the bat, they lowered my already rock-bottom expectations. The
second line in blink-182's lyrics is “true care, truth brings.”
But for some unknown reason the line changes to “true
care, love brings”. It's
not unheard of for Kidz Bop to change lyrics, but it's usually to
censor obscenities and swear words. For example, when they covered
Bowling for Soup's song “1985,” they changed a line from “She
was gonna shake her ass/ on the hood of
Whitesnake's car” to “She was gonna shake it
fast/ on the hood of Whitesnake's car” for the
cover version. But why did the line change here? It
may have been so the meaning of the song was made more clear to the
kids, but it's pretty obvious it's a love song already. With that
said, it doesn't really alter the song's deeper meaning so much as
makes it a little more apparent. If this were the only thing this
cover got wrong, I could shrug it off, but they made a lot of
questionable decisions.
By
far, the most questionable part of the song was who the record
company chose to cover Tom DeLonge's vocals. Rather than find a
sound-alike, they chose a singer who sounds like he smoked an entire
chimney. Pop punk isn't really a “tough” sounding genre,
especially when the band are as polished as blink-182. So when they
chose this singer, the record company really got this wrong. The
vocalist couldn't have sounded less like Tom DeLonge
if they had actively tried.
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| Kidz Bop have chosen... poorly! |
If
Kidz Bop's tagline was music “sung by kids, for kids,” then why
is an adult the center of attention? Unless this was really just a
kid who started smoking a pack of cigarettes a day as a fetus, I
don't understand why the vocals sound so gruff. In fact, the singer
sounds less like a member of blink-182,
and more like Tom Scharpling's character from Steven
Universe. Who knows-- maybe Sharpling really did sing
this, and he's trying to forget it like a bad weekend in Vegas.
Speaking
of this song's vocals, for a Kidz Bop song the childrens' vocals sure
did get pushed to the back of the mix. The only time you'd know they
were there is for the backing vocals, and when they sing the “na na
nas” in the post chorus, which is my punishment for listening to a
Kidz Bop cover on purpose. Something about the way the kids sing the
"na na nas" is just really grating and annoying to me. I
swear those kids are going to haunt my nightmares. The “na na
nas”... they torment me always. The more I listen to the “na na
nas,” the more I wonder if they are, in fact, a circle of hell.
Because listening to it over and over for this review sure felt like
torture!
The
guitars are a lot quieter than they are in the blink-182 version.
They're like a weak, watered down version of the original. This is
what production techniques like double tracking and dynamic
compression are for, to make the guitars sound “fuller” and
louder. But even if they had decided against using those recording
techniques, they could have at least turned the guitars (and
distortion) up in the mix. The original is a very guitar-heavy track,
so any cover would have to embrace that. The only good thing about
how they produced this is that the drums are clearer than before,
possibly because the guitars are so comparatively soft.
Conclusion:
The
biggest problem with this cover version of the song is that Kidz Bop
missed the feel and spirit of the original song. The original was a
loud, happy guitar track about how great his girlfriend is (honestly,
she sounds like a keeper). But by the time Kidz Bop are done with it,
it retains so little of the original charm. The guitars are so much
quieter and weaker sounding, the children's vocals are pushed to the
back of the mix, and the lead vocalist should really invest in one of
those nicotine patches. I would recommend you listen to this only if
you can stand terrible children's music.
