Kidz Bop—the compilation albums that take the Top 40 songs you love and replace them with renditions by screaming children and the occasional apathetic pre-teen—will release its twenty fourth (TWENTY FOURTH! 24th! XXIV!) edition next month. But one song has hit the web early.
"Thrift Shop," originally performed by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.
The real joy of listening to Kidz Bop covers comes from wondering how the masterminds behind the songs will change the more mature lyrics to something kid friendly. Well, this "Thrift Shop" version does not disappoint. Read on for a NSFW-ish look at the lyrical content.
The song is scrubbed clean of profanity, naturally ("motherf--ker" becomes "really awesome," "f--king awesome" becomes "really awesome," etc.), but the real fun comes at the lyrical rearrangements. Such as:
"Walk up to the club like, 'What up? I got a big c--k!'" becomes "Walk up to the club like, 'What up? I got a hit song!'" and "Ice on the fringe, it's so damn frosty / That people like, 'Damn! That's a cold ass honkey.'" becomes "Ice on the fringe, it's so, so frosty / The people like, 'Hey! The guy on the marquee!'"
"Probably shoulda washed this, smells like R. Kelly's sheets" becomes "Probably should of washed this, smells like my baseball cleats" (with the rapper's whispered lyric "piss" replaced by a drawn out "Ew!") and "Fifty dollars for a T-shirt, that's just some ignorant bitch s--t" becomes "Fifty dollars for a T-shirt, that's just silly overpriced."
The most confusing change comes though is a lyric that wasn't even explicit in the first place. "I'm gonna pop some tags" has been replaced in the Kidz Bop version with, "I'm gonna rock some tags."
"Pop" some tags is just slang for removing the tags from new clothing before you wear it. "Rock" some tags sounds like you might have just left the store wearing the clothes, tags and all. Great, Kidz Bop, now we're potentially endorsing shop lifting!
Other tracks on Kidz Bop 24 include Justin Bieber's "Beauty and a Beat" (where Nicki Minaj raps about weiners), Icona Pop's "I Love It" (which discusses watching your car burn after wrecklessly driving it into a bridge and throwing someone's "s--t" out) and two Taylor Swift songs. No censorship needed on the latter.