By the time the 12th volume of the
Kidz Bop series was released, the collections of kid-enhanced covers of pop hits were being released just as frequently -- and featured most of the same songs -- as the Now That's What I Call Music! series.
Kidz Bop, Vol. 12 is especially on point when it comes to timely hits -- the cover of the summer jam of 2007,
Rihanna's "Umbrella," arrived while the original was still topping the charts. True to the
Kidz Bop formula,
Kidz Bop, Vol. 12 features a handful of songs that aren't destroyed by having a chorus of kids singing along with them, and a lot more tracks that hold up a freaky funhouse mirror to the sexuality, materialism, and other very grown-up traits in most pop music. Covering
Fergie's "Glamorous" -- which starts out with the rallying cry "If you ain't got no money take your broke self home!" -- is in questionable taste, as is the slew of brooding breakup songs like
Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around Comes Around"; what was originally a lovelorn, slightly whiny ballad is more than a little unsettling with
the Kidz Bop Kids singing "I know that you're livin' a lie." As with the other collections,
Kidz Bop, Vol. 12 also has more than its fair share of earnest songs that aren't exactly inappropriate, but just sound wrong coming out of the mouths of babes; this time, it's
Nickelback's "If Everyone Cared,"
the Fray's "How to Save a Life," and not one but two
DAUGHTRY songs, "It's Not Over" and "Home," that get the
Kidz Bop treatment. Even fellow American Idol alumnus
Kelly Clarkson -- whose "Since U Been Gone" led to one of
Kidz Bop's most genuinely joyous covers -- provides more fodder for dark and dismal covers on
Kidz Bop, Vol. 12: her "Never Again" sounds bad coming from another singer, and even worse with
the Kids backing her up. The collection isn't all doom and gloom, however; there are a few of the "what the -- ?" moments that have made the
Kidz Bop series just as popular with some adults as with kids. The version of
Gym Class Heroes' "Cupid's Chokehold/Breakfast in America" approaches the deeply weird alternative rock covers that pop up in
Kidz Bop's world from time to time, like
Modest Mouse's "Float On." The
Kidz Bop-ified "Beautiful Liar" is even stranger on a completely different level; the song is popular largely because it's
Beyoncé and
Shakira singing it, and replacing two of pop's most distinctive divas with two faceless ones is just plain odd (needless to say, the poor
Kidz Bop Kids are even more superfluous than usual).
Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" and
Gwen Stefani's "Sweet Escape" are two among a handful of tracks that actually work as songs that children could cover well and appropriately. ~ Heather Phares