“Kids” by MGMT

"Kids" has a long history for a song that sounds so fresh. Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser first played it as students at Wesleyan University in 2003, and it turned up on the MGMT EP We (Don't) Care in 2004, then again on the Time to Pretend EP in 2005. Goldwasser and VanWyngarden wrote the music together, and VanWyngarden wrote the words.

It's a giddy, fizzing slab of pop: a bubbling riff that gets stuck in your head for days, a thumping beat and a vocal that sounds half-dazed and half-euphoric, like a school dance that went on long past midnight. There was even a track called "Kids (Afterschool Dance Megamix)" on Climbing to New Lows in 2005.

An updated version ended up on the band's debut album, Oracular Spectacular, in 2007 and became the third and last single from it on Columbia. It went to number one in Norway and number nine in Ireland, made the top 40 in six more countries, while in America it got to 91 on the Billboard Hot 100 and climbed higher, to 17, on the Rock Songs chart. The song also picked up a Grammy nomination, at the 52nd ceremony, for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.

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