This article is about Peter Bjorn & John song. For the 19th-century British magazine, see Young Folks (magazine). For the Diana Ross and the Supremes song, see The Young Folks.
"Young Folks" is the first single from Swedish band Peter Bjorn and John's third album, Writer's Block (2006). The single features Victoria Bergsman as a guest vocalist. The song received generally positive reviews from critics and performed well in the record charts, reaching the top 40 in Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, and the United Kingdom. A music video made for the song features animated versions of Peter and Bergsman performing the song in various locations.
Reception
The song first attracted notice on websites such as Myspace and YouTube, and was used in a number of European commercials and television shows. Since mid-2007, the song has earned extensive airplay on American radio, most notably on dance radio outlets like KNHC/Seattle, KNGY/San Francisco and Sirius Satellite's The Beat. It is notable for being a popular song with whistling (the whistling was originally added in as a placeholder for another instrument).
The song was ranked No. 5 on Pitchfork Media's "Top 100 Tracks of 2006" list.[3]Pitchfork reviewed the song on 19 July 2006, giving it three out of five stars.[4] The song was also voted No. 2 in the 2006 NME Track of the Year poll.[5]Planet Sound named this their No. 2 single of 2006. The song was named the No. 1 song of 2007 according to the iTunes Store. Y-Rock on XPN also named the song No. 1 of 2007. In October 2011, NME placed it at No. 92 on its list 150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years.[6] It was included in Spinner's 10 Best Whistling Parts in Songs.[7]Rolling Stone put the song also on its list of the 15 Best Whistling Songs of All Time.[8] Australian radio station Triple J ranked the song at number 16 on its Hottest 100 of 2006 list.[9]
The single was re-released on 17 September 2007, reaching No. 13 in the United Kingdom, beating the original chart position of No. 33 in 2006.
Music video
The animated video for the song was directed by Ted Malmros with animation by Graham Samuels. It is featured in the video game SingStar Pop 2, as well as in Lips.
The video starts off with Peter and Victoria sitting in a park, on a bench. Peter teaches Victoria how to whistle. Then the video switches over to them both sitting in a bus where the song starts. Throughout the video, scenes of the band playing the song can be seen and eventually the video ends with a big party where everybody "seems to disappear".
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
In popular culture
"Young Folks" has made numerous appearances in media, including in the pilot episode of the television series Gossip Girl, and in advertisements for UK home improvement retailer Homebase from 2009 to 2013, and Google Nest (smart speakers) in 2017, in which the product's natural language processing was demonstrated by the phrase "play that hipster song with whistling."[34] It also was part of the tracklist in the video games FIFA 08 and FIFA 23.
German singer Nena covered "Young Folks" together with Oliver Pocher and Stephan Remmler in the German language as "Ich kann nix dafür" ("I'm not responsible for it") for the movie Vollidiot. This version was the 78th best-selling single of 2007 in Germany.[35]
^Young Folks (European 7-inch single sleeve). Peter Bjorn and John. Wichita Recordings, P B and J Records. 2007. WEBB151S.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
^Young Folks (UK, European & Australian CD single liner notes). Peter Bjorn and John. Wichita Recordings, P B and J Records. 2006. WEBB107SCD.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
^Young Folks (European CD single liner notes). Peter Bjorn and John. Wichita Recordings, P B and J Records. 2007. WEBB151SCD.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
^"ČNS IFPI" (in Czech). Hitparáda – Radio Top 100 Oficiální. IFPI Czech Republic. Note: Select 51. týden 2007 in the date selector. Retrieved 4 September 2018.