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Despite being a children's franchise intended to sanitize any songs with explicit themes so young audiences can listen, Kidz Bop has kept the meaning of several vulgar songs intact, often with little to no effort to change the lyrics.


  • Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life", a song about suffering from depression.
    • Goes double for Linkin Park's "In The End," a song about broken trust with an eventually suicidally depressed singer.
  • Britney Spears' "Toxic." At best, a song about substance abuse. At worst, a song that uses substance abuse as a metaphor for sex and/or being really horny. Not a single lyric was changed.
  • Simple Plan's "Welcome to My Life," a song about the most angst-ridden teen alive with depressing lyrics and an incredibly dour theme. Not a single lyric was changed.
  • Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out" is generally thought of as being about a sniper about to shoot his target. While "Take Me Out" could mean "take me out on a date" in theory, the rest of the lyrics ("I'm just a crosshair / I'm just a shot then we can die") are clearly about an assassination, presumably that of the Austro-Hungarian archduke that gave the band its name and kickstarted World War I.
  • Averted with "Dance, Dance" by Fall Out Boy. Pete Wentz caught on to this and prevented the song from being covered on Kidz Bop 10 due to its sexual undertones.
  • Hinder's "Lips Of An Angel," which is about having an affair, and sung from the cheater's POV as a love ballad.
  • Neon Trees' "Animal" is a peppy song about drugs, unrequited love, and (metaphorical?) cannibalism. Plus, the song builds to the screamed-out line "And I won't be denied by you, the animal inside of you" and has the constant refrain of "No, I won't sleep tonight," which can easily be interpreted sexually.
  • Maroon 5's "Moves Like Jagger," which uses dancing as a euphemism for sex. Their attempts to clean it up actually made it sound even more euphemistic.
  • Sam Smith's "I'm Not the Only One," a song revolving around sadness and infidelity, is on ''28'.' Despite the changes in its lyrics, it's still a song about heartbreak and depression at best.
  • Ariana Grande:
    • "Love Me Harder" is a blatant Intercourse with You song. The lyrics were censored at several points, but the chorus still keeps the title lyrics.
    • "7 Rings" is about buying expensive things and flaunting your riches. That in itself isn't inappropriate for kids, but the overall tone of the song is mature in a way that's odd for children to be singing.
    • "break up with your girlfriend, i'm bored" is about...well, Ariana urging a guy to break up with his girlfriend so he can have her instead. Even with the profanity and sexual references removed, the subject matter isn't appropriate for kids to be singing (not to mention the clearly sexually-charged lines about "thinkin' bout it," which were left intact).
  • Andy Grammer's "Honey, I'm Good.", a song about trying not to cheat on your significant other when you're drunk, is included on 29. Even removing all explicit references to sex and drinking, the song is still blatantly about infidelity.
  • DNCE’s “Cake by the Ocean” is on 32. While it may seem innocent on the surface, Joe Jonas has confirmed the title is based on a mistranslation of "sex on the beach." Kidz Bop focused more on removing the profanity than the innuendo.
  • Rihanna and Drake's "Work," a song with a title essentially revolving around sex, is also on 32.
  • Kidz Bop has covered several bitter break-up songs, such as Kanye West's "Heartless" and Drake's "Hotline Bling." They deal with the mature themes of not being over an ex. In the former's case, it's the pain of not being over an ex compounded by the pain of losing a parent for whose death you feel responsible.note 
  • Elle King's "Ex's And Oh's" from 31, a song about a woman's exes coming back to her for orgasmic sex. (Most of this is cleaned up by making it about friends instead of lovers, but the chorus still happily sings 'They want me to make them oh-oh-oh,' referring to an orgasm.)
  • Ellie Goulding's "Close to Me" is about sexual desire. They put in a minimal effort to clean it up by changing "your body close to me" to "somebody close to me," but the kids still sing "Keep me in trouble/Born to be wild" and "I'm an animal like you."
  • Juice Wrld's "Lucid Dreams" is a dark Break-Up Song about being depressed over your ex.
  • Their cover of Selena Gomez's "Come & Get It," in which a bunch of kids sing "Baby whenever you're ready...When you're ready, come and get it, na na na na" over and over. While what "it" is was vague enough to get the original song played on Radio Disney with no changes, the lyrics stand out a bit more as inappropriate when children are singing them.
  • The original version of their cover of Drake's "Toosie Slide" makes no effort to change the lyric referring to be from the "trap," AKA an area known for high drug-dealing and crime rates, or the lyrics referring to a drive-by shooting. However, in a rare example for Kidz Bop, they went back and edited these lyrics for their official video and re-released the single on music platforms with the changed lyrics shortly afterward.
  • Dua Lipa:
    • “Physical” is very blatantly about getting, well, physical. For some reason, they changed “all night I’ll riot with you” to “all day I’ll sing it with you” but kept the line “Who needs to sleep when I got you next to me?” as is.
    • "New Rules" is about moving on from a relationship. While they removed the mentions of drinking and waking up in your ex's bed, the song is still a break-up anthem that many kids may not relate to until they are in their mid-teens.
  • Their cover of P!nk's "Don't Let Me Get Me" from 3 keeps intact the line "Teachers dated me, my parents hated me". What is originally reflective from P!nk becomes inappropriate when kids are belting it out.
  • Ed Sheeran's "Bad Habits" song is about struggling with drug addiction, which the title should give away. The only difference in the cover song is the second-person POV instead of the original's first-person POV. Meanwhile, verses such as "bad habits lead to wide eyes stare into space" and "It started under neon lights" stay in it.

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