Moms approve of Kidz’ Bop

Few modern songs are more disturbing to a mom than Rihanna’s raunchy hit, “S&M” — especially when it’s sung out loud by an 8-year-old.

The song is played ad nauseam on pop radio.

But it won’t appear on “Kidz Bop 20,” the latest compilation of current mega hits covered by kid singers in the bestselling CD series. Age appropriateness was the founding concept of “Kidz Bop” — a decade-old compilation series that has become something of a cultural juggernaut over the last decade, hiring tween-age singers to belt out the latest chart toppers from Katy Perry, Britney Spears and other artists and deliver them to the ears of listeners while the originals are still getting FM airplay.

Since 2001, when the series started, “Kidz Bop” has racked up 12 top-10 albums, including the last two discs. “Kidz Bop 18” and “19” have sold 720,000 copies combined in the last year. In the midst of a shaky economy at a time of decreasing overall music sales, “Kidz Bop” is defying the market. Sales are up 39% over the last two years.

Designed “for kids who want to listen to pop songs and parents who may not want them to,” according to co-creator Cliff Chenfeld, “Kidz Bop” is a sort of safe haven for music fans that fills the void between clap-your-hands preschool faves like Dan Zanes and the hyper-sexualized, drug-addled and increasingly profane lyricism of modern pop better suited to older audiences. Curated for content, “Kidz Bop” CDs hit a sweet spot, providing timely, inoffensive pop songs that are a quick and easy substitute for live, commercial radio.

It was Chenfeld’s own reticence at playing Eminem and 50 Cent for his elementary schoolers that inspired the discs.

“I was going to a lot of birthday parties, and there just didn’t seem to be much music for kids,” said Chenfeld, whose children were 5, 7 and 9 at the time he started “Kidz Bop” with Craig Balsam in the same New York production studio as their Razor & Tie record label.

Eleven million records later, “Kidz Bop’s” increasing CD sales in an otherwise declining market have proved its kid-safe, parent-approved concept — a concept it’s successfully applying to other massive and mainstream media properties. Since launching a moderated, Facebook-style social networking site two years ago, 1 million tween members have signed up. Its “American Idol”-esque Kidz Star USA singing competition, started last year, yielded 35,000 contestants, and in August, the imprint will begin publishing books.

The five main singers on “Kidz Bop 20” were found through a nationwide casting. The “Kidz Bop” kids, as they’re known, cover 16 songs, including Jennifer Lopez’s “On the Floor,” Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” and Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way.”

Tucked away in a tween clothing store at the Burbank Town Center mall on a recent Monday, Charisma (in neon sunglasses), Roni (in a bright blue tutu and leggings) and Lyndsey (her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail held together with blinking lights), popped out from behind polka-dot dressing-room curtains, dancing and lip syncing their way through the glittery throb of Gaga’s latest.

They were part of a two-day commercial shoot that had the disc’s main singers and dozens of backup performers running through the mall in chic, ‘80s-inspired fashions, busting into “Glee”-style dance numbers on an escalator, wheeling Razor scooters over the tiled flooring and making faces in a photo booth — lip syncing along with most of it.

“Kidz Bop 20” is set for release July 19, but the set list for the record wasn’t finalized, nor was the final song even recorded, until May 18, to ensure the collection includes hits that overlap with radio play.

To accurately predict what will be popular six months out, Anderson pores over radio charts, looking at songs’ number of spins. Experience has taught him that a song like Hot Chelle Rae’s “Tonight Tonight,” which isn’t in the top 40 in May, is likely to land in the Billboard top 10 by the time “Kidz Bop 20” comes out two months later.

“You don’t know that song now, but your kids in three months will know it,” said Anderson, who passed over songs like Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Now” “because they’re talking about meeting each other at 1 in the morning and they’re drunk” and Bruno Mars’ “Grenade” “because catching a grenade and taking a bullet to the brain is not imagery that kids should really be singing about.”

Perry’s “Firework” made the cut because “it’s so empowering for kids,” he said, Lopez’s “On the Floor” because “she’s on ‘American Idol,’ it’s a fun dance song and kids and parents have fallen back in love with Jennifer Lopez.”

The average “Kidz Bop” listener is 8, Chenfeld said. Its main singers are between the ages of 11 and 13. Though some of the “Kidz Bop” singers who’ve aged out of the series have continued in show business, that’s not high on his list of priorities. Said Chenfeld, “The whole idea of ‘Kidz Bop’ is that anybody could participate.”

susan.carpenter@latimes.com