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"Kids" is the Grammy Award nominated third single from MGMT's debut album Oracular Spectacular. It was released October 13, 2008.
According to the Kids Songfacts, the song is about being filled with such typical college feelings as naivety, idealism, nostalgia, happiness and sadness .
Kids has been re-recorded several times. The "newer" version that appears on Oracular Spectacular is updated from earlier versions that appear on Time to Pretend EP released in 2005 and We (don't) Care released a year before. A track entitled Kids (Afterschool Dance Megamix) appears on the album Climbing to New Lows also released in 2005.
To date, the single has peaked at #9 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, where Time to Pretend had previously peaked at #23.
NME named it the number-one song on its list of the Best Singles of 2008.
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 #16.
Kids also came in at #5 on Australia's Triple J Hottest 100 countdown for 2008.
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 #89, and currently it has peaked at #30. Kids (Soulwax Remix), 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 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.
To date, Kids has featured in multiple media. It was included in soundtrack for the videogames "FIFA 09" and "Shaun White Snowboarding". It made appearances in films such as "That's It, That's All", "American Teen" and "Stranger Than Fiction". As well as featuring in several TV shows and series like, "Survivors", "Paris Hilton's British Best Friend", "Waterloo Road", "The Real Hustle" and "The Vampire Diaries".
An acoustic version of Kids was recorded by The Kooks in August 2008, to appear on the next volume of Triple J's cover compilation Like a Version. Another acoustic version by Australian singer Ben Lee appears on the bonus CD from his 2009 album The Rebirth of Venus. The song has also been covered live by Weezer, Jack's Mannequin, Our Lady Peace and VIC. Matt Hires has also covered the song in some of his live shows, as well as Swedish indie rockband Vinklad.
MGMT was involved in a legal dispute with the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy's UMP party used the song on several occasions, before offering the band a €1 gesture. Eventually, UMP reached an agreement on a €30,000 ($39,000) settlement fee.
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