Kidz Bop is a music brand that makes “kid-friendly versions of today’s biggest pop music hits.” Think Raffi performing “Despacito.”
As such, they tend to change the lyrics around, to keep things OK for the kids. The Pudding did a deep-dive into the linguistic data around Kidz Bop and their censorship choices, and turned their findings into a comprehensive and curious set of infographics:
Kidz Bop songs exist in a weird parallel universe, one where Lizzo’s famous line “I just took a DNA test, turns out I’m 100% that bitch” turns into “I just took a DNA test, turns out I’m 100% that kid.”
Sure, you expect profanity to be censored, but some of the swaps are giggle-inducing gems and travesties. So, we wanted to see if we could find patterns in the black-barred words — R.I.P. to our Spotify account algorithms. (See the ).
Can you find what Kidz Bop censored?
Maybe we need to think a little more about what it says and does to our culture if we keep censoring things “for the kids?”
You can check out all of the data through the Instagram post above, or on the Pudding’s website.
Just How Does Kidz Bop Censor Songs? [Jan Diehm, Sara Stoudt, and Amber Thomas / The Pudding]
Kidz Bop’s “censored” songs aren’t just annoying — they’re problematic [Aditi Shrikant / Vox]
Image: Justin Higuchi / Flickr (CC 2.0)