“Kids In America” by Kim Wilde

"Kids in America" was Kim Wilde's debut single, out in Britain on RAK in January 1981 and in the States the following spring, before it found a home on her self-titled first album. Marty Wilde wrote the words and co-wrote the music with Ricky Wilde, and the whole thing is modeled on the chilly synth-pop of Gary Numan and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: pulsing keyboards, a machine-tight beat and a chorus built for a shout.

Wilde sings it with a cool, slightly bored-sounding pout that makes the teenage thrill even more convincing. It spent two weeks at number two in the UK, went all the way in Finland and South Africa, cracked the top 10 across Europe, Australia and New Zealand, gave her a first top-40 hit in North America, and has sold more than three million copies.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.