Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Welcome to the Year of Indie Sleaze
The indie sleaze era had it all. Sky Ferreira hanging out with Taylor Swift at Katy Perry’s birthday party. A maximalist approach to fashion (no one would bat an eye at pairing shutter shades with a bikini top indoors). Skins parties that recreated the debauchery from the hit British series. Fan-run Tumblr accounts dedicated to the relationship of Alexa Chung and Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner. Wild nights out captured with cameras instead of phones — with flash photography a must. It’s been a decade since this cultural phenomenon ended, but it’s left an enormous footprint on music and fashion. The initial spark came shortly after 9/11, with bands like the Strokes and Interpol releasing their debut albums. It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that indie sleaze became a widespread craze — rea...
Yeah Yeah Yeahs Spin Their Wheels on Cool It Down
When the Yeah Yeah Yeahs ensnared the rock consciousness with Fever to Tell almost 20 years ago, the band’s true magic was never bound to where they’d been — the romanticized New York underground pedigree, those “had to be there” early shows — but where they might be going. With Fever, in all its exhilarating, teeth-baring bar room glory, every moment felt as though Karen O, Nick Zinner and Brian Chase were hurtling toward the precipice of something extraordinary, and perhaps with a little more time to grow and live, the young trio would bloom into one of the most indispensable rock bands of the 21st century. But that never really happened. The follow-up, 2006’s Show Your Bones, was more tentative and familiar in an uninspiring way — wholly forgettable, especially 15 years later. The alt-p...
Yeah Yeah Yeahs Go Up in Smoke on New Single, ‘Burning’
Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman Karen O reflects on a fire that nearly destroyed her East Village apartment in the late 1990s on the group’s new single, “Burning,” a video for which is expected on Friday (Aug. 12). Driven by a piano loop inspired by The Four Seasons’ “Beggin,’” the track is drawn from the group’s next album, Cool It Down, due Sept. 30 from Secretly Canadian. Discussing “Burning,” Karen O recalls leaving a votive candle burning in her New York home and going across the street for a drink, only to return and find a massive blaze having already been extinguished by firefighters. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money...
Yeah Yeah Yeahs Debut New Single at First Show in Three Years
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs opened their first show in three years last night (May 30) at Los Angeles’ Teragram Ballroom by debuting their new single, “Spitting Off the Edge of the World.” The studio version of the track, which features Perfume Genius, will be released tomorrow. They also performed new songs “Fleez” and “Splitting.” [embedded content][embedded content] [embedded content][embedded content] [embedded content][embedded content] The atmospheric, synth-heavy “Spitting Off the Edge of the World” is the first new music from the New York rockers in the more than nine years since the release of Mosquito in 2013. Last night’s setlist featured a few other new, as-yet-unreleased tracks, including “Burning,” “Fleez” and “Black Top.” Back in March, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs announced they’ll rel...
Yeah Yeah Yeahs Tease First New Music in More Than Nine Years
Yeah Yeah Yeahs are heading back to the UK for the first time in more than nine years this summer, and it looks like they’re taking some new music with them. In a statement about the shows, the band wrote: “OK UK! We are coming to lend our light to dark ages and holy shit are we ready to play our hearts out for you!! Yeah it’s been 9 years since we’ve graced your club stages! Yeah we’ve got some tunes so fresh and so NEW to try out on you! Yeah the bill is so MAJOR with Dry Cleaning and Anika in London and English Teacher in Manchester. Dress up! Make a night of it! Support your fave band that you may have seen debut at Brixton back in ’02!! Yeah let’s not wait another decade to see each other again! CANNOT WAIT! They don’t love ya like we do!! Luv YYYs.” Yeah Yeah Yeahs plan to play...
The 50 Best Alt-Rock Love Songs
Not all love songs are romantic. Not all love songs are even happy. It all depends on your definition of the term. For every “My Girl” or “Your Song,” there’s at least one track with a nuanced take on the darker, more complicated sides of love — the drama of a long-term relationship, the fear of losing a partner, the void left in love’s wake. Many of those songs fall under the admittedly broad umbrella of “alt-rock.” So to mark Valentine’s Day, we decided to gather 50 of our favorite “love songs” in the genre — both conventional and otherwise. Throughout this list, you’ll find lines about blooming romance and marital bliss. You’ll also find nods to drug addiction and car crashes. There’s something for everyone. – Ryan Reed 50. that dog. – “I’m Gonna See You” You take the good, you tak...
Pearl Jam, David Byrne, Postal Service and More Contribute New Songs to Voting Rights Compilation
If you thought the first Good Music to Avert the Collapse of American Democracy, which featured R.E.M., Hayley Williams, Matt Berninger, Phoebe Bridgers and more was a colossus, wait ’til you see this. Good Music to Avert the Collapse of American Democracy, Volume 2, featuring 77 previously unreleased songs from Pearl Jam, David Byrne, Postal Service, Mark Ronson, Big Boi and Sleepy Brown, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and many more will be available for 24 hours only on Bandcamp This Friday, Oct, 2. One hundred percent of those net proceeds go to Voting Rights Lab, a nonpartisan organization that brings state advocacy, policy, and legislative expertise to the fight for voting rights. GMTATCOAD Volume Two will feature a slew never-before-heard new songs, covers, remixes, live versions, ...
Yeah Yeah Yeahs Unearth Footage From First-Ever Show for 20th Anniversary
Damn, can you believe it’s been 20 years since Yeah Yeah Yeahs played their first show? Crazy. Many in the audience that night didn’t realize that Karen O. and company would outgrow the club in no time, not did they likely expect the band to — wisely and presciently — film that very first gig. On the 20th anniversary of that occasion, the band unearthed footage from that show at New York City’s Mercury Lounge. As the band notes on their Facebook page, the night was pretty power-packed, as the rest of the bill included “local favorites Candy Darlings, Kid Congo Powers, and up and comers from Detroit The White Stripes.” Those up and comers ended up having a pretty good career as well. That said, Yeah Yeah Yeahs shared a clip from that night, a performance of “Our Time,” which you c...
Karen O Collaborates With Napa Winery to Raise Funds for Black Trans Community
Karen O has teamed up with Napa Valley winery Ashes & Diamonds to create 18 hand-painted magnum bottles of rosé. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer admitted that she hasn’t been making any new music during the pandemic and has pushed that creative energy towards painting wine labels. “I had been yearning to just sit at my desk and paint and draw for years,” she said in a statement. “The part of my brain that I use to make music shut off when the pandemic hit, so this quiet project of falling into a Kenneth Anger-esque fairytale was a nice place to go when I couldn’t go anywhere. Where I could lean my head on the shoulder of Lou Reed’s muse Rachel as the underworld closed in around us, where nymphs have tangled tresses and swim with stilettos, where I could wash and be clean in the smoke and th...
NPR Shares Over 100 Live Performances From 9:30 Club Archive
Since we have no idea when we’ll realistically be able to attend concerts again (at least, without hazmat suits), NPR is bringing the concerts to us. For nearly a dozen years, the radio station streamed shows from Washington D.C.’s iconic 9:30 Club, and now they’re sharing the entire archive with us as a way to celebrate the venue’s 40th anniversary (it opened on May 31, 1980). The streams range from NPR Music’s very first 9:30 Club show with Bright Eyes in 2005 to the station’s 10th anniversary party in 2017, featuring artists like Margo Price, Bon Iver, and Jeff Tweedy. Each piece in the vault comes equipped with streaming audio, and in later years video, along with the show’s original writeup. With more than 100 concerts to choose from, you might not be done digging by the tim...
Yeah Yeah Yeahs Play ‘Phenomena’ in Karen O’s Closet
Karen O has been quite active on social media since quarantine began, and last night she shared another performance from her closet — this time joined by Yeah Yeah Yeahs guitarist Nick Zinner (remotely, via laptop, of course). The two played “Phenomena” off the band’s 2006 album Show Your Bones. The singer transformed her closet with streamers, strobe lights, and a smoke machine, and donned a face covering that she quickly tore off. “Somethin’ like a phenomena,” she captioned the video on Instagram. “Party anywhere (closet) anytime (any day of the week) safe at home” Karen O reiterated this sentiment at the end of the performance. “Fuckin’ party on!” she yelled before the closet door closed. Last month, Karen O shared her first closet performance — dusting off the first track she ever...
