Out Now - US Albums Releases - Kidz Bop Launch New Assault On Chart, A$AP Rocky's Major Label Debut, Posthumous Album From Teena Marie

Out Now - US Albums Releases - Kidz Bop Launch New Assault On Chart, A$AP Rocky's Major Label Debut, Posthumous Album From Teena Marie

A terrifying prospect for most adult music fans this week, as the 23rd (yes, twenty third) instalment in the Kidz Bop series is released today. Parents beware, your favourite pop songs are up for the Kidz Bop treatment once more. Featuring child session singers, the Kidz Bop series records ‘child friendly’ versions of popular songs and this time around, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and Bruno Mars get their songs all re-done with some pre-pubescent warbling over the top. All your favourite songs, then, as you never wanted to hear them. Unless you’re like, eight years old… and maybe not even then. Still, clearly someone’s listening. And buying. Otherwise they wouldn’t keep making them. And they wouldn’t have so many Gold certificates under their belts.

Unfamiliar with Kidz Bop? Let YouTube educate you...

If you need to recover from the horror of stumbling across the Kidz Bop compilation album, then you could always traverse the musical spectrum and wind up with A$AP Rocky’s latest album, Long. Live. A$AP. This album’s already been shunted back twice – it was originally scheduled for release in September last year but things are never simple with A$AP Rocky. Featuring guest appearances from Santigold, Kendrick Lamar, Florence Welch and Yelawolf, Rocky’s rep has slowly been passing over into the mainstream over the last year or so (though not always for the right reasons – see his onstage fight at last year’s SXSW) and this is Mr Rocky’s first major label release; it will be interesting to see how far this US rapper climbs up the Billboard charts with the weight of RCA behind him.

Watch the video for A$AP Rocky's recent single 'F**kin' Problems (ft. Drake)

Long-standing indie heroes Yo La Tengo release their thirteenth studio album this week. Fade marks their first time that they haven’t used Roger Moutenot as producer and instead, they have enlisted the help of John McEntire (of fellow indie heroes Tortoise). Moutenot produced all of their album’s since 1993’s Painful. Yo La Tengo have a solid following on both sides of the Atlantic and although they’re not likely to do to much damage in the charts, they’re a well respected band with a lengthy allegiance to their label Matador and this is their first album since 2009; Yo La Tengo fans will be hungry to hear it. 

Watch the video 'Before We Run,' taken from Fade:

Teena Marie (also known as Lady Tee) was known as the Ivory Queen of Soul. Teena passed away in 2010, after success in the late 1970s and 1980s with Motown Records and Epic. Her R&B and soul songs are often pilfered by today’s hip-hop artists and The Fugees famously incorporated the chorus of her song ‘Ooo, La La La’ into their own hit ‘Fugee-La.’ Beautiful is the last album that Teena Marie recorded; she finished it on Christmas Day 2010; she passed away on Boxing Day. Her daughter Alia Marie told Rolling Stone “The songs that she chose to put on this album are really crazy” and that she believes her mother knew that her death was imminent when she recorded the songs. 

Watch the video for 'Luv Letter' taken from Beautiful