"Shiny Happy People" is a song by the band R.E.M. It appeared on their 1991 album Out of Time and was released as a single in the same year. The song features guest backing vocals by Kate Pierson of the B-52's who also has a prominent role in the song's music video.
It peaked at #10 on the Billboard Hot 100, the fourth and to date the last R.E.M. single to reach the top 10 on the chart. It also peaked at #6 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the first R.E.M. Song to reach the top ten in the UK and the only one to reach the top ten in both countries.
Although a top ten hit, it was excluded from the band's 2003 'Best Of' album In Time; this was reportedly a deliberate decision by Michael Stipe, who once mentioned his dislike of the song in an episode of Space Ghost Coast To Coast.
The song is supposedly an ironic reference to a piece of roughly translated Chinese propaganda; and the massacre in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, two years before the song was released. The inference apparently relates to how politics is controlled by those with kids in powerful positions, not idealistic revolting unhappy students on the ground in Tiananmen Square. The idea that propaganda is often used to cover up stark weaknesses in political systems. The song is mockingly played to encourage unknown political candidates to be upbeat even under fire.
The band performed it on Sesame Street, during the 1998/1999 season, under the title "Furry Happy Monsters." The female vocal was performed by Stephanie D'Abruzzo of Avenue Q fame. An adaptation was written by Sesame Street writer Christopher Cerf, changing many of the lyrics to fit the context of the scene.
Ever since the song's release, comedian Denis Leary attacked it, using MTV as his platform. In one rant, he exclaimed, "Hey, hey, hey! Pull this bus over to the side of the pretentiousness turnpike! I want everybody out, I want the shiny people over here and the happy people over here! I represent angry, gun-toting, meat-eating fucking people! ...Sit down and shut the fuck up, Michael."
The song appeared in Michael Moore's anti-war film Fahrenheit 9/11 during footage of George H.W. Bush visiting the Saud family. Moore had previously directed the video to "All the Way to Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star)" for R.E.M.. The song also appeared in the movie Tropa de Elite, released in August, 2007.
In 2005, Q magazine included Shiny Happy People in a list of "Ten Terrible Records by Great Artists". In its 2006 "Song of the Summer" countdown, CBC Radio's Freestyle named Shiny Happy People 1991's "Song of the Summer" . In contrast, in 2006, the song received the number one position on AOL Music's list of the "111 Wussiest Songs of All Time."
