Yeah Yeah Yeahs

One Liner: Very arty rock with more screaming than I would have guessed, based on "Maps."

Wikipedia Genre: Garage punk, garage rock, indie rock, art punk, dance-punk, post-punk revival

Home: NYC

Poster Position: Level 2 (2)
Both Weekends.  

Sunday.

Thoughts:  Weirdly, this is the absolute first time I have ever intentionally listened to this band.  They've been a part of the cultural discussion for so long, and yet the only thing I had ever heard of before was the one or two radio hits.  So it is really weird to realize what was behind all of that hype.  I also fear that my cool friends are about to be disappointed in me.

The band was formed in 2000 between Karen O (vocals, screaming, piano), Nick Zinner (guitar), and Brian Chase (drums).  Note that there is no bassist listed there.  Everyone met in college, while at different fancy colleges - Oberlin, Bard, NYU - and after forming they supported some other arty, loud bands like The Strokes and White Stripes.  The band's name is supposedly taken from the way a New Yorker would dismiss something, like "yeah yeah yeah, whatever, buddy."

Their big hit was "Maps," and I fully agree that it is a great tune.  But the rest of the album misses me entirely.  I know that it is a critical darling, and I'm probably going to be seen as an idiot for this take, but it truly sounds like the band wanted to riff some classic rock jams, and their friend came in to the room and started just singing/squealing random brain farts onto the tracks.  "Waaah!  Ooooh!  bum bum bum!  I gotta man!  gosh!  Wow!  yeah yeah yeah!  [random sexy noise] WHO!  tick tick tick tick tick tick!!!"  I really dig the tunes in the background - these dudes are laying down tight rock and roll jams - but the vocal are actively aggravating to me.  And obviously I am in the minority, as all the cool kids love this band.  It makes "Maps" just that more jarring, because it is a legitimately beautiful song full of nuance and style.  "Pin" has a Zeppelin groove to the tune, but Karen is just bop bop bopping over the chorus like she forgot to write lyrics before the recording started.  Here is "Maps" which has 151.9 million streams.

Truly, a lovely song.  Starts out so quiet and curious, and Karen O's vocals just layer in there with beauty.  She is again very repetitive with half the first verse just being her saying the word "say."  But that song is legit.  I was curious what the song is about, because it makes zero sense to say the lyric "Maps / Wait, they don't love you like I love you."  Like, a big paper map of the world is not being loved enough?  According to the Internet (and when has that ever been wrong?), it is an acronym for "my Angus please stay."  Deeply, confusingly, odd, but sure makes a lot more sense!

The rest of the album though, that is a hard no for me dawg.  But meanwhile, Pitchfork gave that album a 7.4 and bends itself into knots about how compelling they are as a trendsetting band.  Metacritic has it at 8.3.  NME named it the #5 best album of the decade.  I dunno man.  I don't need that much squawking I guess.

I tried their debut album, and it also has a similar vibe.  "Art Star" has her spouting weird lines until she decides she needs to engage in scream therapy.  And then she just says doo doo doo da doo da doo for a while. It's awful.

After Fever to Tell, you get 2006's Show Your Bones.  I like this considerably better.  Still has the tight, brawny, thumping rock sounds, and O seems to control some of her natural instinct to harm my eardrums.  Interestingly, the stream counts are really low for something I would have considered to be a big record.  Nominated for Best Alternative Album Grammy, ranked well by Rolling Stone, NME, and Spin in their year-end lists.  Odd.  But the top song crushes the rest for streams, this is "Gold Lion" with 46.6 million streams.

Her voice in that one sounds like some 80's singer I can't identify right now.  She is very affected in the way she sings.  But at least she sounds like she is trying to hit some notes and actually sing.  But the underlying song is a nice alt rock skuzzmobile.

After that album, you get 2009's It's Blitz, then 2013's Mosquito, and 2022's Cool It Down.  That big gap in there was a hiatus after 2014 for no known reason that I can see.  Looks like they were just bored, wating to get the "urge" to make more.  Their big comeback was supposed to be for Sound on Sound, an old Austin festival that had supplanted Fun Fun Fun Fest, but that was the year that the main investor pulled out and the Fest died.  Jerks.  But of those three later albums, lower streams on each as they get newer, except for the second track on It's Blitz!  "Heads Will Roll" has 213.1 million streams.

(indie music starting) - I love the subtitles to these songs.  I just remembered who she sounds like, its the "Voices Carry" person from the 80's - Til Tuesday.  Holy shit.  WTF.  Did you know that the lead singer of Til Tuesday was Aimee Mann?  NO way.  I love Aimee Mann, "Save Me" is amazing stuff, but I had zero idea at all that she was the affected voice of "Voices Carry."  Weird.  Anyway, this song is too 80's throwback for me, I'd rather hear them do the heavy classic rock sound from those earlier albums.  This is like some weird Lady Gaga tune.  I like the album opener "Zero" better!

The most recent album continues that trajectory to the band sounding like an 80's synth band.  "Wolf" is pretty good.  "Spitting Off the Edge of the World" is fine.  Interesting that they took their hiatus, and then apparently felt like this was the album they needed to come back to make.  Not bad, but also not very interesting.

Weird.  I guess I don't like Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  This is not at all the expectation I had when starting this post, I figured this was going to be a cool opportunity to finally join the masses who love this band and catch up with the times.  Instead, now I know that "Maps" is just a singularly great song.