PROCESS/NARROWING
Towards the end of the AP Seminar course and into summer, I thought a lot about things that interest me and that engage me on an everyday basis. Naturally, I caught myself constantly listening to music while doing everyday tasks. No matter what I would be doing, there would always be music playing in the background. This led me to think about music related projects I could do. At first, I wanted to do something related to the artists themselves and I landed on doing something regarding conflicts between artists and how those can affect their listening pools, but I felt like this was too much of a recent topic to have any legitimate and academic research behind it. This led me to think of the musical lyrics themselves and how they have changed over different decades which helped me reach my final topic and research question being: Do explicit words or phrases in Kidz Bop songs become suggestive, changed, or bleeped for children?
PREVIOUS RESEARCH
When looking through academic databases for different resources and papers that backed my topic, I found multiple different studies done on my exact topic, most of them even regarding Kidz Bop themselves since Kidz Bop was established 24 years ago. However, most of this research was outdated and only covered a small selection of Kidz Bop songs. This meant that my research is broader and will yield more accurate results, as I have a bigger data pool and selection in general. On the other hand, since these previous studies only had a small data pool, it helped me formed my gap which is the studying the relation between the gender of the original artist and genre of the original song. All other studies done before have been so small scale that none of them have studied this exact relation, making it easier for me to assess. Along with this, every other study done has had their own methodology, helping me craft my own methodology easily and with almost no problems.
COLLECTING DATA
As previously mentioned, most of the other studies done regarding this topic have included different methodologies in their papers and journals. Using these, I took two different methodologies from two different papers. One of these is a table that keeps record of every aspect of my data. I personalized this table for the specifics of my project, meaning my table includes the song title, the original artist, the year of release (original and Kidz Bop), the genre of the original song, the gender of the original artist, and of course how many lyrics are changed, bleeped, or suggestive. The second part of my methodology was taken from a different paper and this introduces a lyric study to my research. To conduct a lyric study, I will print all the lyrics of every song (both original and Kidz Bop) and I will lay them side by side. I will listen to the Kidz Bop song and the original song while following along with the lyrics in front of me, pausing the music to highlight my findings in the respective colors (blue for changed, purple for suggestive, and red for bleeped) as I go. Using these two different methodologies, I will be able to complete not only my data collection but also my data analysis with ease.
RELEVANCE
As music becomes more and more modern, more and more mature concepts and ideas are introduced and referenced in hit songs that get listened to by young ears. Young children shouldn't be exposed to these kinds of things, as their innocence should be protected and they should feel safe and cared for. When listening to music, the brain subconciously takes in different phrases and words that someone may not notice, meaning if a child is listening to a more mature song, although they may not fully understand the lyrics, their brain will still take them in and that can't be reversed. Kidz Bop is a company that advertises clean and kid-friendly music catered specifically to today's youth, but if they aren't living up to this standard, then children today may be at risk of exposure to explicit and unsafe concepts and ideas. By studying different Kidz Bop songs to prove their innocence (or maybe their matureness), then I can bring awareness to this topic and help children stay children for longer.
INTRODUCTION
As I have been researching songs that have been covered by Kidz Bop, a company of kids banded together to create clean versions of hit songs, I have been looking for Kidz Bop lyrics that have been changed to be more kid-friendly, bleeped out entirely, or that have stayed suggestive to other concepts and ideas that a kid should not be exposed to. People, mostly children, listen to Kidz Bop as a way to escape explicit words, phrases, or even mentions of inappropriate subjects. However, while exploring these lyrics of different Kidz Bop songs, I have found that some lyrics aren't as innocent as they should be.
PROGRESS
With my data set of 72 songs (top 3 most playes songs from the past 24 years), I would listen to both the original and the Kidz Bop version of the song while conducting a lyric study, studying the lyrics of both songs side by side to catach changes and suggestive lyrics throughout. At this point, I have finished listening and analyzing all of the songs I needed, meaning I am done with my data collection a month early! I have so much time left that if I wanted, I could go back and add 24 more songs to my data set if I see it necessary.
CHALLENGES/PROBLEM SOLVING
For every single one of my songs, I used the same website to gather the different lyrics I needed to conduct my lyric study. However, when I was deep in my data collection, I noticed that for one of the songs, Don't Stop the Music by Kidz Bop (a Rihanna original) the lyrics that I printed were wrong, and they were wrong on every website I could find. This threw my data off since this was one of the top 3 most played songs from the year of 2008. To solve this issue, I replaced the song with the next most played song of that year. This meant that for 2008, my data isn't the top 3 most played songs, but the top 4 most played songs. Another issue I ran into was that two of the songs I chose, APT. by Bruno Mars and Rosé and RITMO by the Black Eyed Peas and J Balvin, both included lyrics in different languages that I didn't know. Analyzing these lyrics would make my data inaccurate, so like I did before, I replaced both of these songs with the next most played songs from those years.
DATA HIGHLIGHTS
Looking back on my analyzed lyrics, I have observed that most of them have either stayed suggestive or have been changed into a different lyric. When a lyric stays suggestive, it is usually referring to something like drugs, alcohol, sexual activities, etc. Although these may go past a child's mind, it definitely doesn't slip by someone more mature and older. The song with the most changed/bleeped/suggestive lyrics is Uptown Funk by Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars. This song had 24 changed lyrics, 9 suggestive lyrics, and 23 bleeped lyrics totaling to 56 altered lyrics. Furthermore, another trend I found was that when most lyrics are bleeped out of a song, it is almost never just one or two lyrics of the song, it is usually an entire verse of the song. This verse usually belongs to an artist that was featured on this song, meaning Kidz Bop tends to cut out verse's/lyrics from artists that are just featured on a song as opposed to the actual artist's vereses themselves.
REFLECTION
I think I am at a good spot with my research so far. The nice thing is that since I finished my data collection so fast, I have lots of leniency with what I want to do next (add more songs to my data set, start data analysis, etc.). I think I have learned a lot about Kidz Bop themselves. Some things include the fact that sometimes just hearing a kid's voice automatically tricks the brain into thinking anything being said is innocent and pure, when that isn't always the case. Along with this, Kidz Bop uses lot's of adults voices in the background to try and elevate the song, but this defeats the purpose the company's mission.
CONTENT
After researching the true effectiveness of Kidz Bop on modern day adolescents, I found that out of the 1700+ lyrics analyzed, 25% of these lyrics remained suggestive. In other words, 1 in every 4 guilty lyrics went unchanged, although they still referenced topics like drugs, alcohol, sexual matters, etcetera. This proves that although Kidz Bop claims they are a certified and trustworthy media source for children to enjoy, their works are doing the opposite of what was intended, ultimately exposing children to mature concepts on a day to day basis. What is the point of filtering some when you could filter all?
If I were to research this topic further, I would look into the various music videos that have been released by Kidz Bop. While the listener is audibly consuming a song, these music videos allow the viewer to gain a deeper and more visual understanding of the message the song is attempting to convey. Visuals allow for an easier way for a viewer to engage with the media, meaning in order to gain a full and sufficient understanding of the child-friendly qualities that Kidz Bop claims to hold, I would conduct further research and studies on the visual cues and messages being portrayed to adolescents from music videos released by companies like Kidz Bop.
PRODUCT
After putting together and completing my final presentation, oral defense, and academic paper, the biggest thing I learned was how to use other existing academic research to build my own understanding and curiosities revolving around one topic. Understanding how to conduct my own research while also adding to the bigger picture is something that I wasn't capable of before. By writing a 20 page academic paper and presenting a 15 minute ted talk, I feel confident that in the future I will be able to not only take interest in a topic for a long period of time, but also to conduct my own studies that can return full circle, ultimatley adding to and advancing current academic research.
Another skill I acquired from this course is time management. Understanding how to do things like complete my data collection, write my academic paper, and have time to construct and rehearse my final presentation was essential for my success in this course. I have learned that it is important to plan every step of the journey out, using things like planners, reflection journals, and weekly check-ins to keep myself on track. Without using tools like these, it would've been impossible to complete all of these tasks in a timely manner, helping me understand just how important a planned and organized schedule can be.
PROCESS
After studying Kidz Bop and the effects that it can cause for children for nearly a year, I learned that I am more capable of many more things than I anticipated. More specifically, I never would have thought that I would be able to do so much preliminary research on one topic, construct my own gap in existing scholarly research, or write a 20 page paper about the same topic. However, after completing all of these things and more, I understand now that although something may be challenging or something may seem impossible, it can always be accomplished with enough effort and motivation. At the end of the day, I was passionate enough about my research topic that even when I had doubts or came across road blocks in my research process, I still felt encouraged enough to keep working towards the end goal of completing my academic paper and final presentation. As I move forward through my academic career, I have a new understanding of how dedication and determination play a role in not only school work, but personal matters as well. It has become evident to me that with enough commitment and devotion, I will be able to achieve any goal I put my mind to.
Mrs. Dobos - As you guided me through my research proposal, preliminary research, data collection/analysis, and my final presentation and paper, I was able to learn how to conduct real research and put it together to create findings of my own. With your help, I listened to and analyzed 144 songs, made sense of my findings, and put them into conversation with existing scholarly conversation. Thank you for helping me throughout my entire research project, guiding me past road blocks and ultimately helping me uncover the true world of Kidz Bop!
Mr. McBride - While I studied and researched the works of Kidz Bop, you were always there to give me tips and advice on how to better my research as a whole. From the research proposal all the way to the academic paper and final presentation, you always ensured that all of my work was done in a way that would bring me the most success in the end. Thank you for guiding me through the entire year, helping me better my research skills and overall polishing my endeavors with Kidz Bop!
Mr. Rosen - I want to thank you for your unwavering support and guidance you have provided me all year. Throughout this research process, you helped me stay on track with my work when times seemed bleak, making me endlessly grateful for having an encouraging and motivational individual by my side. Thank you for attending my final presentation and attending the research symposium along with aiding me throughout my research process as a whole. Your immense faith in me is something I will cherish forever, thank you!