The audaciously offbeat New York trio Yeah Yeah Yeahs has just released what some critics are calling the years best rock album. Hear the band perform selections from the CD, Show Your Bones, and more, in a full concert recorded live from Washington, DC's 9:30Club. The performance originally webcast live on NPR.org as part of NPR Music's ongong concert series from All Songs Considered. Previous shows are listed at right.
Show Your Bones is a strong, polished and fully-developed follow-up to the band's 2003 debut CD Fever to Tell. That much-hyped album sold more than half a million copies to fans agog over the band's artful, punk-inspired guitar lines, lead singer Karen O's passionate, screeching vocals, and the trio's distinct live shows: no bass player and Karen O bouncing on stage in shredded lace and spandex while dousing audiences with beer.
The band's sophomore CD is more mature but equally passionate. The album's first single, "Gold Lion," (featured on All Songs Considered) is a catchy, more subdued rock romp that struts like classic T. Rex. The rest of the album swaggers with equally addictive riffs and thoughtful, if spare, lyrics.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs got their start while students at Ohio's Oberlin College in 2000, with Karen O (short for Orzolek) on vocals, Nick Zinner on guitar and Brian Chase on drums. The three wrote a batch of songs and soon found themselves opening for acts like The White Stripes and The Strokes. When their debut album dropped three years later, it included a ballad called "Maps." The song became a breakthrough hit on college radio and M-TV 2, making Yeah Yeah Yeahs one of the year's hottest new rock bands.
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