Latest Release
- 27 SEPT 2023
- 2 Songs
- Halloween Party Anthems · 2009
- Fever to Tell · 2003
- It's Blitz! · 2009
- Cool It Down · 2022
- Cool It Down · 2022
- It's Blitz! · 2009
- Show Your Bones · 2006
- It's Blitz! · 2009
- It's Blitz! · 2009
- Mosquito (Deluxe Edition) · 2013
Essential Albums
- Karen O once described the feeling leading up to Fever to Tell as being like a cowboy in a Western getting dragged by a mustang while his boot was still stuck in the stirrup: On the one hand, you’re the hero; on the other, the horse is in charge. It’s a neat metaphor in part because it captures the tension of the music itself. Where fellow turn-of-the-millennium New York City bands Interpol and The Strokes sounded (and looked) like four or five guys operating in unbreakable unison, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs sounded (and looked) like three people continually yanking each other toward opposing corners of the mat with an energy so barely controlled you’d hold your breath wondering if they could make it through without falling apart. On their debut full-length album, you could hear aspects of disco (“Y Control”), blues-rock (“Man”) and other sounds that generally privilege the immediacy of the body over the digressions of the mind. (“Cold light/Hot night/Be my heater/Be my lover,” Karen O sings on “Cold Light”—it’s that simple.) But at the heart of the album was the sense of a band that could fill arenas if they wanted to and could manage to avoid the falling apart, while still retaining a bone-thin ferocity that hadn’t touched the mainstream since Nirvana. And in Karen O, they had a primal, magnetic lead vocalist whose raw power seemed driven in part by the shock that she had it in her in the first place. Then there was “Maps”, which connected the dirt and noise to concerns as transcendently romantic as Billie Holiday or Elvis singing “Blue Moon”. Written for her then-boyfriend, Angus Andrew of Liars, Karen O later described it as a love song she wanted everyone to hear. She got her wish.
Albums
- 2022
- 2009
- 2006
- 2003
Artist Playlists
- Mapping the DNA of art rock's coolest kids.
- Brash rockers and electro-punk rioters with adventurous hearts.
- Listen to the hits performed on their blockbuster tour.
Singles & EPs
- 2023
- 2013
- 2007
More To Hear
- The NYC band’s debut album 'Fever to Tell' turns 20.
- Hanuman Welch marks 20 years of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ debut album.
- The band on "Burning" plus KAYTRANADA joins live.
- Karen O discusses the band’sreturn with their album Cool It Down.
- Rarities, covers and influences from two legendary outfits.
- Rarities, covers and influences from two legendary outfits.
- A city-centric mixtape for a fan ready to conquer The Big Apple.
More To See
About Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Fronted by singer-songwriter Karen O, Yeah Yeah Yeahs burst onto the New York City music scene in the early 2000s with a fusion of post-punk and dance-friendly indie rock. ∙ Thanks in part to the smash hit “Maps,” their 2003 debut, Fever to Tell, was named to Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. ∙ Landing just shy of the Billboard 200’s Top 10, the 2006 LP Show Your Bones was one of three consecutive releases to earn a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album. ∙ “Heads Will Roll,” from It’s Blitz!, became their first Top 40 entry on the Billboard Hot 100 after appearing on Glee as a mash-up with Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” ∙ Karen O composed the Grammy-nominated soundtrack for 2009’s Where the Wild Things Are and cowrote the Oscar-nominated “The Moon Song” for the 2013 sci-fi romance Her. ∙ The band members are all listed as cowriters on Beyoncé’s hit “Hold Up,” from her 2016 chart-topper Lemonade, because the track includes an interpolation of “Maps.”
- ORIGIN
- New York, NY, United States
- FORMED
- 2000
- GENRE
- Alternative