Oh I will admit that I made fun of the song Maps. I remember listening to it for the first time while playing Rock Band (Im so ashamed) and thinking, ‘Gee I could have written that’. And while I still firmly think I could have written Maps, I will now admit that it is a darn good song. I absolutely love the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s debut Fever to Tell, its rare that you hear an album with a beginning, a middle and an end in clear progression yet with extreme distinction. The album has the consistent theme of being about the relationships between people, following the narrative of a female character or characters who fall in and out of love with a man or men that they love and hate. The first few tracks are angry sort of garage rock revival songs that reflect a reckless abandonment. The narrators of these songs come across as headstrong women who could care less about who they spend time with, songs like Date with the Night and Man being short angry tracks. But as the album goes on something interesting happens, the tracks mellow out a little, the song Pin is the turning point, as the narrator still gives in to the advances of hated men, it finally starts to take its toll. By Maps, she is left abandoned and alone, only wanting to be back in the destructive relationship that she has been singing about for the previous half hour. The songs that follow, Y Control is the first time on the album where the narrator admits that she has been taken advantage of and sings “I wish I could buy back/the woman you stole”. What is impressive about this shift is how efficient it is, how subtle the tracks shift from being about “I hate you but I don’t think I can live without you” to just being about“I hate you” and finally returning to “I cant live without you”. The last song Modern Romance is the most somber on the album, Karen O croons about how everything has fallen apart, and how she will never find true love “this is no\ there is no\modern romance”, but what makes this track really interesting comes after it ends and a period of silence. To the sound of just a drum, Karen whispers sweet nothings about the very man she had just gotten over, and the whole thing starts over, giving the album a very cyclical feeling. Whats interesting too is how that track is hidden on the album, like the narrator is ashamed that she wound up back with the guy that she hated so much.
Now let us consider the album cover. Would I call it ugly? Yeah Yeah Yeah I would; Its ugly, and that’s how it is supposed to be. Strings of blood red run between the hands of the band members who are strangely drawn in what looks like an alley. In the foreground there is a snake being stabbed with a knife, and graffiti esque lettering hovers above the bands heads. The album is imaginatively ugly and fits the album very well. Where some albums only hint at how messy love can be, Fever to Tell really sticks with it and tells the whole story, and guess what, its ugly. A friend of mine, John, who does indeed write for this blog has compared the cover to Steely Dan’s wonderful Can’t Buy a Thrill cover, which I think sounds about right, its gaudy and it works.
As diverse is the content of the album, so is the sound. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs had significant studio backing for this; their debut was released on Interscope Records (they have a LOT of money). The sound is well polished and precise on an album that’s content and cover are down and dirty. While fans of garage rock may be initially turned off by how well produced the album is, it’s hard to imagine the smoothness with which the later tracks flow without such production, overall I think the band really benefited from having that professional sound. The bands talent really shines through, Karen O sounds fantastic on every single track, as do the guitar and drums. Karen’s singing ranges from screaming and yelping to remorseful softer sounds without missing a beat, which by the way are expertly crafted The drum beat of Maps for instance is great, and the entire rest of the album follows suite.
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