I was late getting into Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
The whole New York rock revival started right as I was getting into hardcore, and anything that wasn't on Trustkill, Ferret, Equal Vision, or HydraHead wasn't worth my time. I wanted breakdowns and screaming, not grimy garage rock played by a bunch of art school kids.
I paid almost no attention to Fever to Tell, but I knew about it. I had MTV at that point, but it was mostly to watch VIVA LA BAM, PUNK'D, and THE REAL WORLD (I still remember things about Tonya from the Chicago season, and Trishelle from Las Vegas). The videos for "Maps" and "Y Control" were on a lot, but just didn't do anything for me. When Show Your Bones came out a few years later, I started to come around. All the girls I knew worshipped Karen O, and listened to them all the time. Every time I went into visit one of them at work—whether it was at a coffee shop, second hand clothing store, or salon—the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were playing. I still didn't own any of their albums, but I knew their songs, and started to appreciate what they were doing. When they played at the outdoor spring festival (whatever it was called) at the University of Utah in April of 2006, I started regretting never seeing them in a smaller venue. Their performance was awesome, and I could only imagine how fun they would be in a small club like DV8.
It's Blitz! came out in 2009 (it's the only album of theirs that I ever bought), and Karen O did the soundtrack to WHERE THE WILS THINGS ARE (a movie that I loved but will never watch again so as to keep it that way) for Spike Jonze that same year, and I was fully on board. A few years later, she teamed up with Nine Inch Nails to do "The Immigrant Song" and I thought my heart was going to explode. I finally embraced what everyone else saw in 2003.
The few years after that were a weird time for music. CD's were dying, streaming was just getting started, digital downloads with vinyl represses were the main selling point, and download blogs powered by MediaFire was mostly where everyone stole music from (half my hard drive is filled with pirated music from download blogs that I didn't actually want, but wanted to have). I lost track of a lot of bands during that time, and I mostly forgot about Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Then, last winter, Karen O teamed up with Danger Mouse for Lux Prima, which is a fine record, but it just made me want to listen to "Maps" and "Cheated Hearts" again. To make it easy on all of us, I made a playlist for them and the rest of my favorites ("Gold Lion" still annoys me, so it's not there). It's a good way to spend an hour.
I still don't care about most grimy garage rock played by art school kids, but I'd much rather listen to that than breakdowns and screaming.
