The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ mythology was built on abandon. Across Lower East Side dives in the early 2000s, Brian Chase, Nick Zinner, and Karen O put on otherworldly rock shows that verged on performance art — a blaze of vodka-spitting, mic-fellating, IDGAF unruliness and explosive, clamorous tracks. But the indie trio has always operated at two registers: riot, yes, but also ache. That latter quality is there on the back half of Fever to Tell, their 2003 debut, and on later ballads like “Warrior” and “Skeletons.” “Maps,” a career-defining song, isn’t a screamer but a torch song about anxious love. You could argue that this heart-on-sleeve vulnerability is what made their early shows so electric. The point was never instigation but pure, unbridled feeling.
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