"Electric Youth" is a song by American singer-songwriter-actress Debbie Gibson. The song was solely written by Gibson and produced by Fred Zarr. It was released on March 17, 1989 as the second single from the album of the same name (1989) by Atlantic Records. Gibson had written the song as a statement about how young people of that era were seen and how their ideas were often ignored. As a teenager herself, she was a firm believer that the beliefs and ideas held by young people were just as important as those held by adults and the song reminded people of this. It also reminded them that the current youth would become the next generation of adults.
"Electric Youth" became one of Gibson's most famous singles of her career, peaking at number eleven on the US Billboard Hot 100, while also entering the top forty in twelve other countries including top ten positions in Israel, the Netherlands, and Panama. In 2012, Gibson re-recorded the song as "Electric Youth Reloaded", featuring arrangement and rap lyrics by American actor Jace Hall.
Unlike the majority of Gibson's songs at the time, which focused on finding or losing love, "Electric Youth" is an anthem with her calling for her generation to be heard.
Bryan Buss from AllMusic described the song as "a bouncy, frenetic song that is ridiculously sing-alongable, but at the same it is time hard to really identify with it unless you're 12 (or at least young at heart)." The Daily Vault's Christopher Thelen noted that it "capture[s] the playfulness of Gibson's music and the carefree feeling of youth." Pop Rescue said it is "by far the best song" on the album. Meanwhile reviewer of British magazine Smash Hits took this single very critically: "Songs about one's generation are always a bit dodgy, aren't they? And, sadly, this is no exception. It's all about how great Ms. Gibson's generation is and how the sky is their limit and all that sort of twaddle. It is also finds Debbie at her squeakiest and, to add to the calamity, "Elecrtic Youth" screams the word "bubbly" at you in no uncertain terms. It's got "bubbly" lyric, a "bubbly" beat and an infernally "bubbly" tune! But it just ends up getting on your wick." Edem E. Ephraim and Dennis Fuller of London Boys, being host reviewers of singles column of Number One on 26 April 1989, considered that the song is too quick for dance and gave it a grade of 2 stars out of 5.
The music video for the song was directed by Gibson and Jim Yukich and was nominated at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards for Best Art Direction In A Video.
In 2006, elements of the music video (particularly the silhouette dance clips) were parodied by Cobie Smulders in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother for her character Robin Sparkles' own 1990s ("The 80's didn't come to Canada 'til like '93.") hit single, "Let's Go to the Mall."
All songs are written by Deborah Gibson