"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.
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 against a background of fire. The quote ("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 from Friedrich 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 mother and she walks out of the house, then down the street, while the child sees humans as bloody monsters. His mother then places him down and he begins to walk down the street, and then begins to run and cry 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 returned to his mother by a monster policeman, and his mother discards the headband. As his mother drives him home, the toddler sees monsters outside and on a TV. The video shifts from live-action to animation, and the van is revealed to be a scab on a naked woman. Various surreal things happen in the animated world. The video ends with the 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 turns into a monster and the boy is eaten.
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 2023, the music video has received over 167 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 Stone'''s Kevin O'Donnell described the song as, "a noisy New Order-style synth jam."