Certain musicians believe that a song is better when children sing as part of it. This trope, however, is the concept taken just a little further; the children are the credited performers.
The reasons vary. Perhaps one of the parents is a musician or a producer and is getting the kids involved young. Perhaps a Stage Mom really wants it to happen. Perhaps this is tied into something commercial. Perhaps the kids themselves are Doing It for the Art. Often, because they don't know what they're doing, they will sound bad; but you can find a Child Prodigy here and there.
Child popstar may join a Boy Band as they mature, assuming they can bear to give up the instrument. Indeed, several boy bands initially fit here. Others become Teen Idols. Either way, in adulthood, they may end up becoming a Former Child Star.
Not to be confused with Kids Rock, in which a children's choir sings backing to a performer. Related to Teen Pop.
Examples:
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Fictional Examples
Anime & Manga
- In life, Lily Hoshikawa from Zombie Land Saga was a child actor who died young of a heart attack caused by the stress of her job, her strained relationship with her father, and a dysphoric episode caused by her first facial hair coming in. In death, she's the youngest member of Saga prefecture's hottest new idol group, Franchouchou.
- The Garbage Pail Kids Movie: It featured a rather shoehorned-in musical number courtesy of the titular tykes.
- Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li portrayed Chun-Li as a Child Prodigy at the piano.
- Lil' Kunt, actually a puppet employed by British musician Kunt And The Gang.
- The Idolmaster, across six main installments, has sometimes allowed idols younger than pubescent age into their ranks to act as the Token Mini-Moe:
- In THE iDOLM@STER: Cinderella Girls, you can recruit a handful of girls aged twelve or younger into 346 Pro. The spinoff THE iDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls U149 exclusively focuses on these girls, making them their own unit and giving them a producer of similar height (but not age).
- In THE iDOLM@STER: SideM, this is attributed to Mofumofuen, a trio of boys who are marketed for their cuteness and often make appearances in in-universe children's media.
- Sonia Strumm in Mega Man Star Force who meets the main character Geo Stelar and becomes a love interest as the series goes on.
- It is implied that the incomplete ending version of "Dreams Dreams" on NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams is sung by either Helen or Will, depending on who you clear the game as. Even before that, Helen herself is revealed to be good at the violin.
- Dani from Camp Weedonwantcha was this trope, until his fame was superseded by another singer, eventually leading to his parents abandoning him at the titular camp.
- An episode of Baby Looney Tunes saw the cast form a band for Granny. It went as well as could be expected of a gang of infants.
- Exaggerated in an episode of Family Guy, in which Stewie Griffin tries to get an appearance on Meg Griffin's album.
- In an episode of The Flintstones, Pebbles and Bam-Bam become singing sensations. It turns out to be a bad dream of Fred's about his little girl leaving him.
- Home Movies - in an episode highlighting guitar genius Dwayne's fretting over a competition, Brendon, Melissa and Jason start a band - and they are awful!
- Phineas and Ferb does this for a sizeable portion of its numbers. The episode "Flop Starz" is even dedicated to the boys deliberately becoming one-hit wonders in a single day.
- Ready Jet Go!: Jet often writes and performs his own original songs throughout the series. In "Potatoes on Mars", it's shown that Jet is the lead singer of the band, with Sydney on piano, Sean on drums, Mindy on flugelhorn, and Sunspot on electric guitar.
- South Park:
- In "Something You Can Do With Your Finger", the boys form a pop group called "Fingerbang" (because Cartman thinks it's another word for forming Finger Guns).
- In "Christian Rock Hard", Cartman becomes a Christian rock singer who performs pop tunes about loving Jesus... intimately.
Real Life
- Swedish Cult Classic Arvid Tuba started at 13, although he didn't release stuff until he was 15.
- Justin Bieber's "Never Say Never" featured clips from videos dating back to kindergarten which showed him singing and playing different instruments. He also became famous at age 16.
- Björk started out as one.
- Black Out Band, better known for "Video Games"
- Cex, oddly enough; featured on the Starship Galactica EP was a version of said song done when he was a little kid.
- Charlotte Church
- Experimental band Ctephin comprises, for the most part, a married couple and their eldest daughter, but sometimes invoke this trope when the whole family, some of which aren't even ten, join in.
- Miley Cyrus began her musical career at 12 going on 13 with Hannah Montana.
- Ross Lynch was 15 going on 16 when he started his Musical career as Austin Moon on Austin & Ally, 13 when his band R5 was formed, and 17 when R5 released their debut album
- The DeFranco Family: When they had their first hit, three of the five siblings were under 18, and the youngest (lead singer Tony) was 13.
- Dev2.0 a one-off Devo tribute.
- Included on Dokaka's debut album were some snippets and recordings he did when he was a small child.
- Harsh Noise musician Elizabeth Floersch claims she has been classically trained "from a young age."
- Girls With Attitude
- Hanson, when they started.
- Libera
- Puerto Rican boy band Menudo used to be, with their members being less than 15 when they became a sensation all over Latin America. Ricky Martin, their most successful ex-member, joined the group at the age of 12.
- The Jackson 5 started as young children. Michael, the youngest of them, was only six when the band was formed (while Randy is three years younger than Michael, he was 14 when he replaced Jermaine).
- Hailie Jade allegedly held the record as the youngest charting performer for the song "My Dad's Gone Crazy".
- Kidz Bop
- Lady Gaga, who started playing piano at age four.
- Lil Bow Wow started when he was still too young for high school. Indeed, he was once on the Guinness Book of World Records by sheer dint of his age.
- Lil Wayne started when he was twelve.
- The Naked Brothers Band, at least initially.
- Oblive admitted in a May 2011 interview for Musique Machine that when he was eleven, he tried to form a punk band.
- Two members of The Partridge Family
- Prussian Blue were a teen vocal duo who made pop music for the neo-Nazi/white supremacist movement. This is actually what they were, not a satirical premise. To their credit they eventually broke free of this direction, as well as brainwashing from the adults around them.
- RedSK started when he was ten.
- Before getting into the business as Scissor Shock in 2003, Adam Cooley spent from age 12 to his puberty as Stagedive Suicide.
- Connie Talbot reached second place in the first series of Britain's Got Talent in 2007, at the age of six. She has released four full albums and an EP since.
- Notoriously, there's the Tangerine Awkestra, a jazz ensemble composed of 3-7 year olds who had been played free jazz recordings and Art Ensemble of Chicago albums.
- Violent JJ
- Vziel Projet was 13 when his career (and with it, his netlabel) kicked off in earnest, although he has recordings dating back to age 5.
- Willow Smith in her early career.
- Stevie Wonder, back when he was credited as "the twelve year old genius" — from the beginning, he played the piano, harmonica and percussion and he was about seven in the beginning.
- Cody Simpson and Greyson Chance started out as this in the same year.
- Death Angel drummer Andy Galeon was only 14 when the band's debut album was recorded. You'd never know that from listening to it.
- Salserín, a salsa orchestra full of these. One of their signature songs is even named "Bebé Salsero", "salsa-singing baby", always given to the youngest member (the kid who first recorded it was about four years old at the time). On first their popularity peak in the mid-to-late 1990's they got a movie and a short soap-operas; then two of their oldest singers, the brothers Servando and Florentino Primera, left the band and became a latin pop Teen Idol duo, in a move that give them another teen soap and a movie deal.
- Country Music has had several:
- Brenda Lee first started charting at age 12. Her most famous song, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree", charted when she was 14.
- LeAnn Rimes' career had been fostered before she hit double digits, but "Blue" broke her through at age 14.
- Billy Gilman was 12 when "One Voice" made him the youngest solo male with a Top 40 country hit.
- Ashley Gearing was also 12 when she barely charted with "Can You Hear Me When I Talk to You?", breaking Lee's record for the youngest female to chart a Top 40 country hit. However, her career never took off.
- Hunter Hayes had been a child prodigy who won accordion contests as early as age 4. His major label career didn't begin until he was 20, though.
- Danny Cooksey (yes, him) had performed with some respected country veterans by age 8. This would also count as an example of He Also Did.
- Child opera prodigy Jackie Evancho.
- No one from Job for a Cowboy was over the age of sixteen when they formed.
- Lorde was 15 when her extended play The Love Club was released, which featured her first hit "Royals". In fact, the song was first discovered when an agent heard her sing it at a school talent show (!) and got her to record it.
- Mini pop group S Club Juniors (later S Club 8). Spun off from the already-successful S Club 7 (later S Club), the group was made up of 8 children, all 11 and 12 years old when their first single was released. They had 2 hit albums and about 6 singles before breaking up some 4 years later. Some of the 8 children have gone back to normal(ish) lives, while the rest went on to be in other pop groups (notably Frankie Sandford, the lead female singer of S Club Juniors, who went on to be 1/5th of The Saturdays).
- French pop singer Jordy started his career and scored his biggest hit, "Dur dur d'être bébé" ("It's tough being a baby"), at the age of four. He's actually certified by Guinness as the youngest singer to have a #1 hit single ("Dur dur d'être bébé" went platinum in France).
- Everyone in Noisem was under the age of 20 when they formed as Necropsy; while Ben Anft and Sebastian Phillips are both 23 as of now, Sebastian's brother Harley is still only 19.
- Nikki Yanofsky's professional career began at age 9, when she sang on an Ella Fitzgerald tribute compilation. By the time she turned 20, Quincy Jones had already taken notice.
- A few members of the Osmond family were this. Perhaps most notable is Jimmy Osmond, who became the youngest UK #1 artist at just 9 years old.
- Breze, an English girl group from the 1990s, made up of 4 girls aged between 10 and 12. They had precisely one hit single ("My Heart Goes Boom") before parents began to complain to 19 Management about the perceived exploitation of children by the music industry, and the group's second single (and album) were promptly dropped, the group never to be heard from again. This was about 2 or 3 years before the even-more-popular S Club Juniors (see above) first appeared, and were met much more warmly by the public.
- Marcus & Martinus, a Norwegian teen pop duo who were in their early teens when their first single dropped.
- Tanya Tucker had her first hits when she was only 13.
- Leif Garrett released his first single at age 14.
- The Linda Lindas, a Riot Grrrl-inspired punk band whose members ranged from 10 to 16 when their May 2021 performance of "Racist, Sexist Boy" went viral and got them signed with Epitaph records.
- XOMGPOP was formed with the help of Jojo Siwa, whom also stared as a Child Popstar
