As I started listening to the School Gyrls’ (did they have to misspell a word following school?  Really?) eponymous CD, my first thought was step AWAY from the Auto-Tune, Nick Cannon.  Step far, far away.  Holy voice distortion, Batman: these poor girls are light years away from their natural voices.  My second thought was that I am obviously ancient because I remember when Britney Spears first did the over-produced school girl Lolita bit and as I recall, she did it much better back in the day. 
 

The School Gyrls, AKA teenagers Mandy “Mandy Rain” Moseley, Monica Ann “Mo’Money” Parales, and Jacque “Jacque Nimble” Pyles, were discovered/formed by Nick Cannon in November 2008 and they made their television debut on Cannon’s Party Monsters Cabo in January 2009.  The inevitable movie, creatively titled School Gyrls, followed, airing on Nickelodeon and TeenNick earlier this year and now the Disney-esque quest for world domination continues with this forgettable eight track CD.
 

School Gyrls can’t quite be called terrible because that gives it too much credit: for something to be truly awful, some effort has to go into it, and that is so not the case here.  This disc is just another in a long line of slickly produced, overly synthesized tweener pop albums by blandly cute teenage girls “singing” shallow, insipid lyrics about nothing.  Kids may love it, but it’s kryptonite to anyone over the age of twenty-four.  None of this is the fault of the Gyrls (ugh) themselves; for all anyone knows, they have lovely voices hidden under that computerization.  They are simply a product being packaged and sold by Nick Cannon, and he’s probably already lining up their younger replacements.
 

The songs themselves are harmless: shallow, narcissistic, and occasionally annoying, but ultimately harmless.  There are no overt adult themes or objectionable words to worry parents.  The tunes are generic and shrill, and each song is virtually indistinguishable from the rest and none will stand out from anything else being marketed today.  This is not a group that will have staying power, so if you’re a parent with a child fixated on the School Gyrls, buy the CD and make your kid happy.  Your ears may bleed a bit, but don’t worry: something even more irritating will come along soon enough.  If you're not a parent, well, you probably have no idea this CD even exists, and you should feel free to keep it that way.
 

Track List:
Something Like a Party
Detention
What Goes Around
Just a Kiss
Something About Him
I’m Not Just a Girl
Extra Extra
Get Like Me