STACK #181 Nov 2019

MUSIC FEATURE

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and be somehow involved with her for a while. I felt it. Just, wooooosssshhh. Immediate connection. So we did this Unitard project.” Emerging from New York’s freak-folk scene, Unitard performed their first gig at an open-mic night. Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ first gig, with Brian Chase on drums, was at New York’s famed Mercury Lounge alongside The Candy Darlings, Kid Congo and The White Stripes. Karen O’s general badassery spruiked a girls-to-the-front mentality at their live shows, during which she would randomly snatch drinks from the hands of front-row punters – to scull or pour over herself/the crowd – with some regularity. The band’s blistering self-titled EP is often mistakenly called MASTER due to the prominence of a gold chain necklace with letter charms spelling out that word in the photo that graces the cover – cue provocative S&M connotations. EP opener Bang! ’s chorus lyrics – “As a f-ck, son, you suck” – are a hoot to screech along with on the dancefloor, but just be mindful of who you make eye contact with. In order to prioritise recording Fever To Tell to their satisfaction, Yeah Yeah Yeahs cancelled their first European tour, which included a slot at Reading Festival. “I definitely

Karen O on stage in Cologne during the Fever To Tell tour; image snapped by guitarist Nick Zinner

peak chart position almost a year after its initial release. As raw, vulnerable and universally relatable as it gets, Maps charts the breakdown of Karen O’s relationship with Angus Andrew from Liars. “We wrote it in Nick’s room with the blue drum machine and a four-track recorder,” Karen O told Goodman. “I was really lovelorn at the time. ‘They don’t love you like I love you’ was straight from a love letter and I just plucked it out of there because I thought it had a good ring to it. Just a simple statement that really stuck with people. You know, I say ‘love letter’, but it was a f-cking email. Motherf- cker. You know what? I’m going to rewrite history right here. I wrote it with a quill. It was a feather quill, written in blood. It might as well have been.” Have you ever thought Kelly Clarkson’s Since U Been Gone borrows from Maps ? Well spotted. Dr. Luke (who co-wrote this Clarkson hit with Max Martin) told Billboard that Since U Been Gone was basically their attempt to add a pop chorus to Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ masterpiece, “because that indie song [ Maps ] was sort of on six, going to seven, going to eight, the chorus comes... and it goes back down to five.” Karen O told Rolling Stone that recognising segments of Maps within Clarkson’s song “was like getting bitten by a poisonous varmint.” Maps also inspired a Beyonc ė song: Yeah Yeah Yeahs are credited on Hold Up (from Bey’s Lemonade album), after one of the song’s cowriters, Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, appropriated the “they don’t love you like I love you” hook. In Goodman’s aforementioned oral history, Karen O explains how she can tell she’s onto something during songwriting sessions: “It’s totally unintellectual. I get, like, butterflies in my stomach or I get a wave of euphoria or I get the chills or I cry... If it’s not right I feel like I want to throw up or I want to pull out my hair.” And that’s the sign of a true artist. BC

believing all this hype was to just get our record done.” Yeah Yeahs Yeahs were soon nicknamed the ‘No No Nos’ due to their reputation for cancelling shows and turning down media ops. Yeah Yeah Yeahs financed their Dave Sitek- produced debut album themselves, recording at the low-budget Headgear Studio in Brooklyn. Unlike their previous two EPs, which were jam-packed with the thrashy punk material that made Yeah Yeah Yeahs such an appealing live proposition, Fever To Tell also included some heartfelt, emotional moments and went on to become the band’s most commercially successful release. But

felt like I was on the verge of a meltdown,” Karen O admitted to Goodman. “I knew that

Yeah Yeah Yeahs were soon nicknamed the ‘No No Nos’ due to their reputation for cancelling shows

if we just continued the way we were going I was going to burn out much too quickly, and that what was more important than pleasing promoters and

it wasn’t until Maps was released as a single that Fever To Tell ’s sales spiked; the album achieved

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NOVEMBER 2019

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