Yeah Yeah Yeahs

The punk-rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs assembled in New York in 2000. The lineup was comprised by vocalist Karen Orzolek, guitarist Nicolas Zinner and drummer Brian Chase. Nicolas and Orzolek performed together before the formation of this team, as a folk rock duet Unitard. Karen was a student of a cinematography college while Nicolas’s core occupation was photography. Therefore, their music activity went on an irregular basis and none of the musicians paid it a lot of attention. Nevertheless, the duet soon realized the necessity of a drummer for their live performances. There came Chase and the band shifted from folk to punk and was renamed to Yeah Yeah Yeahs, an odd phrase from one of The Beatles’ songs.

At the first rehearsal, the band manufactured a few songs and in a short while the musicians performed them as a supporting act for The Strokes, and The White Stripes. Early in 2001, the outfit released their first single, Bang! This attempt did not perform extraordinarily in the market, but there were more and more people coming to see Yeah Yeah Yeahs live. This was largely associated with the figure of Karen, the vocalist. She worked hard on the image of her band and succeeded remarkably. The lyrics of many songs concealed indecent messages, while the clothing the girl appeared on the stage in was impossible to forget. Having acquired a significant fan base, Yeah Yeah Yeahs escaped to the studio to prepare the self-titled EP. It saw the light of day late in 2001. In the first half of 2002, Yeah Yeah Yeahs surfaced on the international forum. First, they played on the European venues with Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and then they arranged their own tour over the UK.

In 2002, Yeah Yeah Yeahs spent the intervals between the concert campaigns to work on their debut full format album. Before they issued it, the group’s supporters were offered to while away the waiting time with the Machine EP. The much-anticipated Fever to Tell hit the stores in 2003. The sound was much cleaner than the one featured on the band’s first works, and the electronic instruments had a much broader application. Thanks to the ballad Maps, a 2004 hit, the album reached a noticeable commercial success. This composition granted the whole CD a golden certificate. At that time, Karen moved to Los Angeles. In 2005, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs members took up their side projects. Karen contributed to the making of the soundtrack to the Nike shoes commercial. Zinner recorded a solo album called Head Wound City and had the book with his pictures published.

Late in 2005, Yeah Yeah Yeahs got together again in the studio to start working in their second long player. Show Your Bones was recorded within a very short period, but this never affected its quality. The album was delivered in spring 2006 and surprised both critics and music lovers with the maturity and proficiency of the featured material. This record made the whole way up to the eleventh position in the album charts and still remains the band’s best selling effort. Yeah Yeah Yeahs spent the rest of the year playing concerts to promote their fresh release. In summer 2007, the musicians released Is Is, a collection of songs written at different stages of their career. In 2009, Yeah Yeah Yeahs prepared another present for their supporters, the new studio album It’s Blitz! Without making radical changes in the music, the Americans made another step towards the perfection of the style they chose in the very beginning. This studio work showed that the musicians are moving in the right direction.