Kids (MGMT Song)

"Kids" is a song by American rock band MGMT. It was released as the third and final single from their debut studio album '' Oracular Spectacular'' (2007) on October 13, 2008. The version of the song that appears on ''Oracular Spectacular'' is updated from earlier versions that appear on the band's EPs ''Time to Pretend'' (2005) and ''We (Don't) Care'' (2004). A track entitled "Kids (Afterschool Dance Megamix)" appears on the album ''Climbing to New Lows'' (2005). On December 1, 2009, the track was announced as a nominee at the 52nd Grammy Awards in the category Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.

The song was the center of a legal dispute with the former President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, over the "insulting" compensation he offered for his illegal use of the song during a party conference.MGMT to sue Sarkozy for music use
26th Feb 2009

Music videos

Student assignment video

A video made by University of Southern California student Jon Salmon was created in December 2007 as a student assignment and uploaded to YouTube the following month. The video features fellow students Abby Fuller and Rafael Pulido lip-syncing to the song and frequently cuts to various clips from other YouTube videos featuring people dancing. It has since been viewed more than 52 million times on YouTube as of June 2020. MGMT later invited the participants to join them for the official video of "Electric Feel".

Official video

On June 3, 2009, MGMT released the official music video for "Kids". It was directed by Ray Tintori, who directed MGMT's previous videos for "Time to Pretend" and "Electric Feel." The video was released to the '' Oracular Spectacular'' version.

The video follows a toddler menaced by monsters that his inattentive mother (played by Joanna Newsom) cannot see. It begins with a quote ostensibly from Mark Twain, on a background of fire. The quote at the beginning of the video ("Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you..") attributed to Mark Twain is actually a quote from Nietzsche's ''Beyond Good and Evil''. Then, a crudely designed countdown sequence from five to one plays, with a rapid set of fuzzy, low-quality pictures of children in the background. After that, the toddler is seen in his crib, as monsters suddenly appear and show their claws at him. He is then picked up by his mom and she walks out of her house, then down the street, while the child sees humans as bloody monsters. His inattentive mother then places him down and he begins to walk down the street, and then begins to cry and run in fear of the monsters. The toddler smiles as he comes across the band performing the song in futuristic costumes. The toddler gains an MGMT headband before being retrieved to his mother by a faceless policeman, and his mom discards the headband. As the mother drives him home, the toddler sees monsters and a creepy sheepdog outside and in a DVD. The video shifts from live-action to animation, and the van is revealed to be a scab on a naked woman. Various surreal things begin to happen in the animated world. The video ends with the little boy running from a monster and then climbing onto the hand of a giant Andrew VanWyngarden. The boy happily waves his arms at VanWyngarden, but he explodes and the boy spins into darkness.

The video has been criticized for its treatment of the toddler who appears to be truly frightened throughout the video, although it is stated on the MGMT website, "No children were harmed in the making of this video." Stereogum noted that the video "essentially polarized everyone old enough (but not too old) to know what the internet is." While MTV noted that "They really don’t make videos like this any more … mostly for legal reasons", the band later released a "behind the scenes" video through their official YouTube channel that shows the toddler laughing while interacting with the puppets and actors in monster costumes. The animated sequence was done by Christy Karacas, director of the ''Superjail!'' TV series, as well as Henry Thurlow and Lizzi Akana. As of February 2022, the music video has received over 149 million views on YouTube. The video was featured on the eighth season premiere of ''Beavis and Butt-head'', "Werewolves of Highland".

Reception

The single peaked at number 9 on the US ''Billboard'' Alternative Songs chart, where "Time to Pretend" had previously peaked at number 23. ''NME'' named it the number-one song on its list of the Best Singles of 2008. In October 2011, ''NME'' placed it at number 99 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years". ''Rolling Stone'' named it number 46 on its list of 100 Best Songs of the 2000s. ''Rolling Stones Kevin O'Donnell described the song as, "a noisy New Order-style synth jam."

Two months after exiting the UK Top 40, the song was featured in an advertisement for the BBC1 program '' Waterloo Road''. From this the song gained renewed interest, re-entering the UK Top 40, and on January 16, 2009, the song reached its highest position to date of number 16. "Kids" came in at number 5 on Australia's Triple J Hottest 100 countdown for 2008. In 2013, the song was voted at number 64 on the same station's Hottest 100 from the past 20 years.

The single received considerable airplay in the U.S., UK, Ireland and Australia before the release date, charting in the UK, Ireland and Australia. In Australia, "Kids" debuted before the release date at number 89, and it peaked at number 30, playing on radio stations like Nova. A Soulwax remix of the song was played heavily on UK radio ahead its official release as well. The song got to the number one spot on VG-lista, the Norwegian chart, based on downloads alone. This made some controversy about how reliable the chart was, as the song had not been playlisted on any major radio stations and it disappeared from the chart the next week.

In popular culture

"Kids" was selected for the soundtrack for the video game '' FIFA 09''. The song was also featured in the Quiksilver and Red Bull snowboarding film, ''That's It, That's All'', and as the final song in Taylor Steele's surf movie ''Stranger Than Fiction''. Other appearances can be found in episode 6 the BBC
...