Yeah Yeah Yeahs

As The Strokes and White Stripes sent the UK indie scene into a fevered love affair with any garage rock band willing to name-drop The Ramones, Yeah Yeah Yeahs emerged pouting out of New York in a haze of artsy punk glamour in 2001. A self-titled EP and support shows with The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion created a steady buzz before debut album Fever To Tell (2003) launched the singles “Date With The Night”, “Maps”, “Pin” and “Y Control”. Bristling with wild energy, flamboyant fashions and a bewitching air of cool, Karen O was widely compared to a young Debbie Harry as the band released second album Show Your Bones (2006). Throbbing with disco glitz and club beats, third album It's Blitz! (2009) marked a significant departure, dispensing with Nick Zinner's crunching fuzz guitar in favour of synths and dance-floor joy. Critics and fans loved it and NME named single “Zero” as Track of the Year for 2009. Meanwhile, a remix of album track “Heads Will Roll” by Fool’s Gold Records boss A-Trak proved to be a global sleeper hit, obtaining gold certification in the UK and amassing over 300 million streams. The trio’s next LP, Mosquito, arrived in 2013 to positive reviews, reaching a career high of #5 on the Billboard 200. They subsequently called an indefinite hiatus, during which Karen released a commercially successful solo debut, Crush Songs (2014), and a lyric from “Maps” was interpolated by Beyoncé on her 2016 hit single “Hold Up”, penned by Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig. Reuniting in 2017 and marking their comeback with a deluxe reissue of their first album, the group soon returned to the studio to work on new material, while Karen also teamed up with trip-hop producer Danger Mouse for an acclaimed joint LP entitled Lux Prima (2019).

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