It’s Blitz! by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

This one was a bit of a surprise for me. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are a pretty well-known band who are a little past their prime. Their first album, Fever to Tell, was a tour de force. But with their sophomore release, the lackluster Show Your Bones, I was already over them. They supernova’d — they got really big and burned out just as quickly. I’d all but written them off by the time It’s Blitz! was released this past March. Consequently, I ignored it. They released the video for “Heads Will Roll,” shown above, which is frankly not anywhere near their best work.

But D liked them, and had the CD in the car for a few months, so I invariably listened to it. And listened to it some more. And I finally came around to, “You know what? This isn’t half bad.”

And so here we are. I would have picked a better tune to feature as the video, but they don’t have any other videos from the new album. You can download an MP3 of Hysteric, one of the better songs from It’s Blitz!, thanks to another blogger’s end-of-the-year countdown.

Based on my reaction to this CD, I apparently counted the Yeah Yeah Yeahs out before their time. Karen O, the lead singer, made it a point of really proving me wrong by doing some amazing soundtrack work for one of my favorite movies of the year, Where The Wild Things Are. You can stream the entire soundtrack over at Stereogum. I haven’t picked it up yet because I have a feeling I won’t care for it outside the context of the movie, but maybe it would have ended up in this list rather than the Yeah Yeah Yeahs if I’d given it a fair chance.

Since the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have pretty much exhausted what they can do with their song format, it will be interesting to see where they take it from here. Hopefully they’ll be able to retain my interest next time around.

__________________________________________

30. Beware by Bonnie “Prince” Billie
31. Veckatimest by Grizzly Bear