Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It's Blitz!

Just picked this up and it floored me. Two spins so far, easy top 5 album of the year so far.

See, that, I don't get. I just don't understand how some yelping over MOR indie electro-dribble could floor anyone. I like it, it's OK, but I never got why they were huge in the first place. I dunno. It feels like when people were telling me that the Strokes were saving rock, and I just o_0

What is it that floored you? What evokes such a hyperbolic response? I know you're a regular here, so you can't be just hearing music like this for the first time… What specifically connects?

I just don't understand how some yelping over MOR indie electro-dribble could floor anyone.

dumb description of this album yo

What is it that floored you? What evokes such a hyperbolic response? I know you're a regular here, so you can't be just hearing music like this for the first time… What specifically connects?

I've been a mild YYYs fan over the years since their first EP/album, always thought they were fine enough but never loved them. This album to me feels like the culmination of what they've been working towards.

The songs are up to par, but they've toned down and become more subtle since the early stuff but "maturing" (in a good way) in the process. The "rockers" are catchy and interesting without having too straightforward of a structure all the time; the "ballads" hold my attention without sounding sappy or boring. Every track is different. Almost every track is memorable after two spins; it sticks with me.

There's more going on than a few chords and Karen's yelping; her vocals are complex, more subtleties; she is finally as captivating as she's always meant to be. She's not going over the top with her oft-touted "sexuality" which I found tiring on, say, the first album. Her intonation and expressiveness is top notch.

Nick's guitar pokes its head out now and then, but he's a fantastic instrumentalist aside from just guitar; look at the liner notes, dude does more than just guitar here. The drumming is fantastic all around.

The production is great all around. One of those albums that sounds way better on a good stereo than on earbuds, which is not the norm lately. It's very refreshing. Other posters have described the production better than I could, please refer upthread.

How's that?

I like it, it's OK, but I never got why they were huge in the first place. I dunno. It feels like when people were telling me that the Strokes were saving rock, and I just o_0

For the record, this is how I felt when Fever to Tell came out. I thought Show Your Bones was better, by no means a coherent album but showed potential. They were stretching themselves a bit and making errors in the process. This new one feels like a complete statement. It hold together well and it's their best album so far.

OTM. My feelings exactly.

definitely. good post ilxor.

For the record, this is how I felt when Fever to Tell came out. I thought Show Your Bones was better, by no means a coherent album but showed potential. They were stretching themselves a bit and making errors in the process. This new one feels like a complete statement. It hold together well and it's their best album so far.

Not to undermine my snarky pseudo-description above, but I agree with all this. I do think this one feels complete, I do think it holds together well, I do think it's their best album so far. I'm just not getting the "floored." I'd rate it a solid B, not an A+ must buy, y'know? So I was wondering if there was something that kinda catalyzed it into a ZOMG moment, but from your comment, I think it may just be that strange distance between like and love; subjective ears.

Is anyone saying it's an A+? I haven't heard an A+ album in years.

Thanks. Of course, a lot of my love could be due to lesser expectations... I saw the album came out a few weeks ago, shrugged; read the praise in this thread, was a bit intrigued; found a used copy last night, picked it up and WHAM! there it was, a fully realized album length work from a band with previous bits of greatness. I just didn't see it coming!

I'd give it an A on the Christgau scale:

An A is a record that rarely flags for more than two or three tracks. Not every listener will feel what it's trying to do, but anyone with ears will agree that it's doing it.

I still haven't even heard the album in full and I pretty much think what ilxor does, it's very much a 'oh finally everything is gelling as it should have done to start with' move. Which is great! I've long since stopped being beholden to the idea that a band's full career-as-such needs to be appreciated in favor of those moments where it finally comes together. (Classic example of this ten years back was Mechanical Animals where a band that I'd be pretty well indifferent towards got shockingly good, very immediate and commercial in the best possible way -- and then turned out dully again after that but for one brief shining moment etc.)

god i was getting so annoyed with this "yyys album for yyys haters" crap but then Ned had to go and compare the album to Mechanical Animals

i think one of the reasons (a minor reason in comparison to how it sounds) that this floored me is because i loved fever to tell, because the arc of their career has led them from excelling at one aesthetic to excelling at a totally different one. as much as i loved fever to tell, that could easily have been a one-off by one-trick ponies (not that there's anything wrong w/that); show your bones was impressive b/c it demonstrated their restlessness, and that they could pull a different sound off on occasion, but it didn't gel as a whole. here...it all gels. it's really beautiful.

for the record i prefer this album to show your bones, glad to see that one was "transitional," but enough of the tracks leave me cold that all the "oh good finally these upstarts are putting down the guitars and acknowledging the majesty of Version 2.0" suggests some people need to go back and listen to Fever To Tell and see if they've gotten over their Rock Is Back resentments.

i agree, but at the same time i wouldn't want another fever to tell from them at this point

It's also possible that they've written more songs I like and put them on an album than they ever have.

Stop being so resentful, Alfred.

well yeah, I'm glad they're prettying things up if Karen's determined to be so mushy a vocal presence. I miss the aggro humor.

xpost to lex

I seem to be the only person in the world who thinks Show Your Bones is great and that It's Blitz! is a transitional record as they learn to go beyond geetar-drums-voice indie rock unto their own thing. That is not to say I don't also love it, it just seems like they are still adjusting to a new sound added into their usual songwriting.

Yeah, "floored" for me is a "can't stop listening" album, one that dominates everything going on around. But there aren't many of them.

million xpost

yup this is def a can't-stop-listening album (there have been three, maybe four, this year alone for me)

What else, lex?

(I realize this is probably in other threads incl. the best of 2009 thread but I'm at work and being lazy so there you go.)

the-dream and taylor swift (and maybe ciara, though that's a special case given that most of the tracks leaked individually before the thing was released and i obsessed about them in turn, so the actual album feels oddly...not underwhelming but it doesn't even seem like a thing that exists)

i went through a few weeks when it first leaked where this was all i'd listen to, but i cant do that anymore. i'm still able to do that with the-dream, and this new james blackshaw i've played ten times in ten days or something.

God I can't wait to hear the Blackshaw record.

this is good! "skeletons" is my favorite so far (but i'm only about halfway in).

i'm glad they're finding their feet as a band; their previous records seemed like dry runs to me.

I don't know, I've pretty much loved them since the beginning. I was listening to the YYYs EP last night and still love it.

"Bang" is a great song.

I wish people would stop saying this isn't a guitar record. It totally is. There are guitars all over the place, fuckloads of them on every track. They certainly outweigh the synths.

I hear you're buying a synthesizer and an arpeggiator and are throwing your computer out the window because you want to make something real. You want to make a Yaz record. I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables. I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars.

:)

I'm officially psyched about 'Zero'

awful lyrics on this album, no better than a NOISETTES or a LITTLE BOOTS or any one of a million pappy alt-electro-ish bands doing the rounds.
to wit: "heads will roll... heads will roll...heads will roll... *on the floor*..."
yeah cheers.

lol

i don't think citing one repeated chorus phrase is really evidence of bad lyrics. not that anyone was particularly praising them in the first place! i like them though, they're vague and impressionistic but karen o sells them.

^ otm, this is sort of like complaining about the lyrics on physical graffitti

Karen O doesn't write lyrics, she improvises slogans, which is exactly what this punchy, declamatory music requires.

Secret YYYs influence: Nitzer Ebb?

heads will lol

wow at this thread. man, i hated this after the first halfhearted listen myself (It's Dogshit!, brayed i in mine infinite wisdom). then i played it in shuffle mode (alongside the new Dylan) one night and was floored by damn near every track. now i'm wondering if i may have seriously underestimated their previous effort--which, if memory serves, i only gave a cursory listen (or two) to before deciding to consign it to the black hole "rock" oblivion it so justly seemed to warrant back when--too.

I need to go back and listen to that one too. I seriously loved the Is Is EP, thought it was the best thing they'd done at the time. Maybe Show your Bones has gotten better with age?

Show Your Bones is patchy but its best moments are incredible (Turn Into, Way Out and that whole run from tracks 5 through 8).

this is great. I feel bad about not buying it. But I am poor.

Show Your Bones is patchy but its best moments are incredible (Turn Into, Way Out and that whole run from tracks 5 through 8).

― Enormous Epic (Matt DC), Sunday, May 17, 2009 5:10 PM (Yesterday)

yeah "turn into" is probably my favorite YYYs song

http://www.last.fm/music/Yeah+Yeah+Yeahs/+videos/28974809

holy shit, this is great

# sergei_RH wrote:
yesterday afternoon

I just can't make out what the vid's about

# AnUub1s wrote:
yesterday afternoon

what do you want to know? they have a fuckin piano that chages colours when you play on it, thats all you need to know....

awesome video and awesome song (much better than 'zero' imo)

is there a rolling "awesome videos of 09" thread?