June 5, 2024 • 31 mins
In 2003, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were not only emerging as one of the most stellar bands in a particularly thrilling New York rock scene, but also as one of the most exciting bands in the world. Their breakout hit "Maps" would be a major pop crossover moment, joining the lexicon of great and timeless rock and roll love songs.
At the band's helm was Karen O, the firecracker of a lead vocalist whose songwriting, style and stage presence has influenced an ever-growing list of rock and pop stars in her wake. She met drummer Brian Chase while attending Oberlin and later connected with guitarist Nick Zinner at NYU. When the three combined forces in 2000, it would lead to the arty-punk tour de force that was their debut album Fever to Tell and some of the most talked about gigs around NYC during the Meet Me in the Bathroom era.
On this week’s episode hosts Rob Sheffield and Brittany Spanos discuss "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and are joined by their brilliant colleague Julyssa Lopez to meditate on what makes the song (and its legendary video) so iconic, while also breaking down Karen O's legacy as one of the great vocalists and frontpeople in rock history.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list. I'm
Britney Spanis and.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Rob Sheffield and we're here to shed light on
the greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them
so great.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
And today we are going to talk about Maps by
the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. That song originally was on It
did make the two thousand and four list, came out
a year before the two thousand and four list, and
then it was added to the twenty ten update and
it was at number three eighty six on the twenty
ten update and came in at number one oh one
on the new list, So it jumped up a bunch.
I absolutely love this song. This was on my ballot
(00:36):
actually for greatest Songs.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Oh yeah, it was way up in my bud. It's yeah,
absolutely one of the great iconic rock and roll love
songs of all the time.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I feel like this was a song that was very
very much in heavy rotation and Fuse and MTV two
at a very formative time for me. So it was
constantly watching Karen Oh kind of do the mic kind
of rotating thing on the video, which is one of
my favorite music videos of all time.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
It's so awesome. When did you hear it from the
first time?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Probably the year came out, so in two thousand and three,
and I feel like, yeah, it was the first time
I had really heard any music from that kind of
New York post punk revival scene. But the Ias were
my first kind of introduction. This was like an era
when I started to explore a lot more of rock
music that was going on at the time, and a
great time for rock music in that year specifically, amazing time.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
That was one of the great eras for rock music.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, And what do you remember of hearing the Ias
for the first time? You were living in New York
already by now, Yes.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
They were the greatest band in town. Really exciting time
to be in New York and be a fan of
punk rock. There wasn't a time where it was a
lot of excitement on New York bands, specifically because the
nineties were a time when rock bands were just exploding
all over the world. There were so many great innovative
and experimental bands all over the world with such different approaches,
and New York was really kind of lagging behind at
(01:59):
that time. It was really wild to have this moment
in the early two thousands where suddenly there's all this
creative blowing up in New York that completely unlike anything
that anybody had seen in yours.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, and what did you think when you first heard Maps,
especially in contrast to the other music that they had
put out two EP's right before Fever to.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Tell yeah yeah? It was so beyond what anybody thought
the Aeis could do. And I was the world's biggest
yeah yeah yeas fan at that time. In Maps was
way beyond what anybody thought that they were capable of.
It was such an exciting time in general. It was
the meet Me in the Bathroom era. The story at
this moment told so brilliantly in Lizzie Goodman's book In
the Bathroom, which is one of the great rock books
(02:40):
of the century. But there was this exciting punk rock
scene in New York at the time. The Strokes had
such a huge role in instigating it. And there was
bands like Interpol who are very like post punk, and
RD and Detached, and then there were the a Yeah Yeahs,
who were just very punk rock in your face, very already,
(03:01):
very gothy, and very excitement oriented. In a way that
was really new and exciting. Kareno always said that when
she was a kid going to rock shows in New
York and people would always sit on the floor and
just you know, just kind of sit on the floor,
zone out, listen, and she said that was my pet
peep people sitting on the floor. She said, we wanted
to be a band where nobody would be able to
(03:22):
sit on the floor. It'd be a really like disco
approach to punk rock in many ways, just everybody up,
everybody into it, very excitement oriented.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah, So Karen and Brian met first at Oberlin College
and then Karen transferred to NYU and she met Nick
and it was Karen and Nick were doing acoustic music,
which I had not known until I read Meet Me
in the Bathroom and kind of saw some of the
clips from it in the documentary, And so they were
an acoustic duo for a little bit and then decided
to kind of go a little bit more of on
(03:53):
punk and pay tribute to a lot of the bands
that all three of them loved growing up and were
huge fans of. And then they as were born, they
were kind of it seemed like a lot of people
in that scene immediately were taken by them in the
same way that you were. They were already opening for
The White Stripes and the Strokes and had so much
buzz building around them even before they were signed to
a major label and released Fever to Tell, which is
(04:14):
one of one of the great albums, such a perfect.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Album, perfect album, seeing yeah, yeah, Yes, for the first time.
It was one of those life changing punk rock gigs
where everybody in the room has a new favorite band,
you know, just a few minutes into the showy, absolutely explosive,
and it was funny because for them, they thought it
was kind of a goof at first. You know, Nick
and Karen were so serious about Unit Tard, which was
(04:38):
their their goth folk acoustic duo where it was very serious,
very long, slow, sad songs and just on a whim.
One night, Karen said, you know, it'd be really fun
to do a rock and roll band, and Nick just thought,
that's really played out. Why would anybody want to do that.
They came up with their name, their sound, their first song.
(05:00):
In about ten minutes. They were just like goofing around
and they came up with Bang, which is a phenomenal
song about you know, just like punk rock, punk rock,
people having sex, and it was a real party song.
It was really dance floor song. It was a really
garage rock song. That was the mode that they were
working in so brilliantly. But Maps was a love song,
power ballad in so many ways, and a soul song
(05:23):
in so many ways.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, what I always have really loved about Maps is
it's there's a sparse neess to it, like it's really
kind of you know, even just like that opening riff
that's happening, and then the way the drums come in,
like there is something that feels like it's as big
as it is, Like there is like such a sparse
ness to the way they attack it, whereas kind of
that you listen to a lot of the other songs
on Fever to Tell, and they're so just kind of
like messy and that like disco punkness, but there is
(05:46):
this kind of beautiful, kind of almost stripped downness in
comparison to some of the other songs that they're known
for and from that era. And I think that works
so well for this type of love song because you
can really hear kind of like the cracks and Karen's
voice as you're saying wait on the chorus and kind
of the minimalism of like the verses and stuff like,
it's just such a perfect, perfect low love song.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, it's well. When Karen first started getting attention, people
would talk about her in terms of, you know, the
great goffy punk rock queens, you know, Susie Sue or
Patti Smith or Debbie Harry or Kate Bush. But you
know it was for her growing up. Sam Cook was
her idol and you can hear a lot of that
(06:28):
in Maps. She is singing from the heart in a
way that people were not expecting from her.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, there's so much soul in the vocal delivery. And
I think again because the video was such like an
important part to how I think a lot of people
heard the song and kind of really fell in love
with the band and with Karen as a front woman.
Like the way that she delivers that song in the
video is mesmerizing, like, and she's talked about it later
on where it was so much because her boyfriend at
(06:54):
the time, Agus Andrews of the band Liars, who was
the inspiration for the song, showed up three hours late
to go on tour, Like she was genuinely upset and
really kind of you know, this was the guy who
inspired the song that she was so excited about not
showing up when he needed to show up. True bad
boyfriend in kind of like just pop rock history kind
(07:15):
of stuff, really affecting the way that she went into
this performance and real tears that she's shedding in this
high school auditorium gymnasium situation where she's performing with the band,
and it's just like almost like for me, sort of
like changes the adds so much more sadness to the
song than when you actually just hear it without the video,
Where you hear without the video, there's so much like
kind of like hope with it, and then you see
(07:36):
the video and it's like, oh, this is like kind
of heartbreaking, and I think that's such a beautiful way of,
you know, flipping the song on its head.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
The early two thousands were not a time when there
were women rock stars in the same way that there
were in the nineties. You know, the nineties was a
time when there were so many iconic, messy, chaotic, aggressive,
all sorts of different kinds of female rock stars and
completely dried up in the late nineties early two thousands
Karen was so she was out there by herself. It
(08:05):
was such a different thing to hear on the radio.
Definitely a different thing to see on MTV was to
see this female rock queen.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah and I mean think one of the great rock
vocalists of all time too, Like I mean just like
an absolute powerhouse in that way.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Incredible. Well, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs is a live band
so phenomenal because three completely different kinds of musicians doing
extremely individual stuff that somehow has this perfect combination. Brian
Chase one of the all time great rock drummers. He's
so loud on maps, He's got this distinctive sound. When
(08:39):
people imitate the song, which they do a lot, which
they will discuss, they always rip off Brian's drum sound,
and yet nobody can do it. And he was a
serious avant garde jazz noise guy. He was, you know,
Anthony Brianxton is a huge inspiration for him. He was
in so many noise bands and was really interested in
that of super abstract stuff. But he just brought so
(09:03):
much heart and intensity to that kind of song you
can't imagine it without him. Next is Inner, one of
the great guitar heroes of all time.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, I mean those are It's incredible to have a
song that only has one of the most iconic drum
beats of all time, but also one of the most
iconic guitar riffs. Like it's just like such a perfect
combination happening on there. That's, like you said, a lot
of people have tried to rip off, which we can
get into, of course, we talked about in the Maxmartin
episode Since You've Been Gone. There is no hiding in
the fact that the writers of Since You've Been Gone,
(09:30):
Max Marten and Doctor Luke really wanted to do their
own version of Maps because this was like a big
indie rock pop crossover moment, not even just for the
aa as, but for that entire scene. And you know,
they fell in love with that song much like millions
of other people around the world. And so Since She'd
Been Gone was a song that was very much inspired
and kind of pulled from how Map sounds and sort
(09:52):
of that attitude and worked extremely well.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Extremely well. But if you happen to be a fan
of the aa yes or Maps, or you even knew
that song first time you heard Since You've Been Gone,
you had to think, what are they thinking? You've got
to be kidding me. It was so obvious, it was
so funny, it was so great, just that turnaround in
the bridge where they even totally rip off that Brian
Chase drum sound. It's really great, and it's really kind
(10:17):
of beautiful tribute because this is the kind of song
that they're trying to do. They're trying to do a
very much Strokes ya ya yeahs kind of song in
a pop context and incredibly brilliantly.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, and they pull it off. Kelly Clarkson was the
perfect person.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
I do it.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yes, it's funny that everybody in teen pop wanted to
rip that song. We cannot forget the great the legend
Ashley Simpson doing La La to Me, that is one
of the gray pop hits of the two thousands, along
with Since You've Been Gone, could not be more blatant
as a beautiful and brilliant rip of the ya yeah
yeahs and Maps.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I mean, I would say that the aaas were very
very much kind of a blueprint for a lot of
pop stars at this time in terms of kind of,
you know, making more of a pop rock sound, kind
of that indie pop sound that a song like Maps
did so well, was the way that that spread across
pop music was so important, and that it's so much
a part of a lot of early Ashley Simpson music.
(11:13):
You know, I would say even kind of goes as
far as when we get into like the Miley, Selena
Demi early years of their releasing music, there is kind
of you can kind of see that through line from
what was happening in indie rock and indie pop and
pop music in the early two thousands to like what
they were doing even a decade later, like you could
still kind of hear that influence of a song like Maps,
(11:35):
like everyone's still trying to make maps, even like a
decade later in the in the teen pop sphere, the
song again continues to have so much life and even
just a few years well, I don't know, I guess
it's been a while now. In my head, it happened
like two years ago. But with the album Lemonade, Beyonce
interpolates Maps on the song hold Up and of course
has another another life for the song, which is I
(11:57):
mean that whole song is just like incredible, That whole
el was incredible, but like what a fun thing to
have Beyonce saying they don't Love You like I Love
You on anything.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Well, a truly great and shocking moment is just that,
the whole Lemonade experience and the whole like Lemonade event,
and just what Beyonce did in terms of like this
song that is. I mean, honestly, the shock of Lemonade
is hard to describe in so many ways, but hold
Up is definitely like a shocking part of it. And
then it was really a shock at the time to listen.
(12:27):
I remember that Saturday night of listening to Lemonade and
hold Up comes up, and it's extremely extremely surprising. Yeah,
it's funny because it was Lemonade came out the week
that Prince died, and Prince died on Thursday, and the
album came out on Saturday night and Friday night. The
Yeah Yeah Yes played a secret gig, a fans gig.
(12:48):
It was for a film festival in Karen's husband directed
a It was a documentary with the great rock photographer
Mick Rock. So they did a secret show and it
was really amazing because they hadn't played in a while,
and because Bowie had just died. They did a set
of Bowie covers as a tribute. But because Prince had
just died the previous day. They did when You Were Mine, Yeah,
as a beautiful Prince tribute and they had like dads
(13:11):
from TV on the radio and it was just a
beautiful tribute. And afterwards I was thinking, Wow, they were
in a really good mood. They were really having fun,
Like it was really kind of beautiful. And then you know,
lemonade drops the next day at what message Nick that?
And I was like, now I understand why you guys
were in such a cheerful mood yesterday. You had no
idea you were about to have such a big weekend.
But it was like, really just kind of beautiful that
(13:33):
the story of this song just never ends.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, I want to have your opinion on the indie
Slee's revival that people can't stop talking about.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
And I feel like it's a weird.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
It's like a sort of like a fashion thing and
obviously pulls so much from Karen O and from the Aias,
and it's so much inspired by them. It's kind of
funny to me that we haven't seen like more more
bands pop up sort of pulling from from this era
and kind of have seen it resurface in a in
a musical way beyond just kind of like the aesthetic
and sort of the meet Me in the Bathroom of
(14:03):
it all, beyond of course the music. So I was
wondering what your opinion then, do you feel like we're
going to see like another sort of revival of this
of the sound and of bands and artists kind of
inspired by by the aaas and a lot of their peers.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Absolutely, well, we're in a full blown Indie Sleeze moment,
which is, let's face it never going to end. Yeah,
it's just a timeless aesthetic. And it's funny that the
name for it, Indie Sleeves, is pretty new. Nobody called
it that at the time, and it's one of those
things where a movement and an aesthetic gets a perfect
name after the fact. Nobody called rockabilly rockabilly in the fifties.
(14:37):
That name just came later. Nobody made film noir and
called it film noir. That came later. Indie Sleeze is
a perfect example of that. People didn't call it Indie
Sleeze at the time, but it's a perfect name for
what it was and what it means. And it's very
much driven by Meet Me in the Bathroom, which definitely
takes this moment and makes such a great, timeless rock
and roll story out of it. I feel like Indie
Sleeves is forever.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
I feel like, especially for a a lot of people
who were kind of teenagers in the two thousands and
reading like Nylon magazine and like Spin and all of that, Like,
there was so much absorbing of that scene that kind
of felt so distant, you know, it felt like such
a such so much more of like an adult scene
than than others. And I think that people are kind
of getting there at their chance to relive that, you know,
(15:20):
like and going and listening to a lot of those
bands and be able to see a lot of them
still live, which is also that the best part is
getting to kind of like go catch an NOLCA sound
System show, see the AAA, see like the Strokes and
all of that, and get to kind of live out
a lot of those those musical memories.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yes, yeah, and so many of the bands from this moment,
you know, they had this Indiesley's moment that's iconic, but
they had long, amazing careers and the yeah yeah yeahs.
Although this is by far the most famous song, they
have one of the most astounding catalogs of rock music
of the past fifty years. Yeah, everything that they've done,
(15:55):
they are still doing amazing albums to writing amazing songs,
still doing amazing live shows after twenty years when most
people kind of thought that they'd be a just one
and done sort of you know, quick laugh, thanks for
the memories kind of Yeah, band that they had just
amazing staying power and so much that. I think it's
(16:15):
just because Karen O was a start at time when
she was a Korean American rock star at a time
when that was so unheard of. Definitely nothing like it
at that time in that sort of new metal era.
But it's such a exciting moment for all these bands
to be listening to each other, taking ideas from each other,
pop stars, punk rockers, rappers, always hearing each other at
(16:37):
festivals and ward shows, and being influenced by each other
in these really exciting ways. The AA is obsessed with
Missy And while they were making their first album, they
were listening to Under Construction constantly, and the Missy Elliott
was their template for what they wanted to do. Timbaland
was what they wanted to do. They wanted something that
emotionally and musically comprehensive and exciting, and you can hear
(16:58):
a lot of that in Maps. It's really like very
much Missy Timbland's song in terms of just the emotion
of it and also the experimentation of it.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah. Yeah, I had no idea that Missy was such
a big influence on them, and also like beyond and
of course you know just the amount of being alive
and listening to Missy Elliott's hard not to be a
super fan, but yeah, I know idea that there's such
like a direct kind of inspiration on that era for them.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, and under Construction such a classic Missy album, and
it's funny. At the MTV Video and Music Awards in
summer two thousand and four, Karen actually got to meet
Missy and she said, your heart is so big, we
get lost in that shit. I thought there was such
a beautiful way to sum up Missy's impact on music,
but also just how you can hear that in Maps,
that just the idea of like a heart so big
that you get lost in.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Also with the Map story, have you heard the theory
about my angus please day being the reason?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Why do tell?
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I've heard this once and I haven't like let it go,
and one day I will find out from Kareno herself.
When it happens, I'll share the wealth. But the theory
is that MAP stands for my Angus Please day, of course,
inspired by Angus Andrews of Liars, the inspiration for the song,
the inspiration for the crying and the video, and I
think that's perfect. I love that so much.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, yeah, So with the song being about Angus of
course using his own band, Liars, and there's a lot
of theories that the song the Other Side of Mount
heart Attack is sort of his response song to Maps,
Like how do you feel about that theory? Do you
feel like that matches.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Up Liars such a great band themselves. I love a
lot of Liars albums. I'm intrigued by the idea of this.
It's like this sort of like back forth dialogue. I
have to say, this is very brittany, like you're dying
to mention at least one of the Jonas brothers right now.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I did think of them, and I have thought of them.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
It's a very Disney Channel pop era approach to like
punk rock. It's like who's the Hillary Duff and who
is the Aaron Carter and who is the Jonas of this?
Speaker 1 (18:50):
This musicians are dating. There's a song, and there's a
response song. It's just the way the world works, and
I don't want it any other way, you know. So
even if it's not that song, I feel like they're
one in there. I'm gonna I'll dig through the Lyar's
catalog later and try to find it.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I love that well, just clearly part of what makes
Maps the Driver's License of its era and an ongoing
story that will just keep getting rewritten in retail.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah, I'll look for any songs with like a k
in there. It's like my Karen. Please stay well, we'll
do we'll do some research on us. We are joined
now by Rolling Stones Stuput music editor Julisa Lopez. Thank
you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Guys, excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, so do you want to tell us a little
bit about maybe the first time that you heard Maps.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
I remember that album like when I discovered it, just
like being something that I played over and over and over.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
I was obsessed with it. I was like in love
with it.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
And I think part of it is because I grew
up my parents were so strict I grew up so
like restricted and like had this like super Nicaraguan family
that wouldn't let me do anything, and there was so
much freedom on that album. It was like so free
and chaotic. Karena was just like doing whatever she wanted.
So I feel like when you discover that you're a
teenager and you're like, oh my god, this is what
I want. Feel like having that feeling, especially like as
(20:13):
a teenager when you feel restricted and then seeing you know,
I think by the time then I got around to
like the videos too, and like thinking about her live
now just someone who went crazy when she was on
stage and she'd be like yelping and like making these
like wild sounds.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
On stage that were so visceral.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
I think it was just like something that felt really
aspirational to me as someone who like wasn't again allowed
to do anything because of my very in a Garagin family.
I think it was also something about seeing Karena and
such like a masculine sort of like rock centered world
and also is like, you know, like a multi ethnic
woman too who had that kind of freedom and who
wasn't afraid to do that.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
I think was like huge for me.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
I remember like feeling like there was like a similar
like energy with like mia and like that kind of
freedom and that like you know, fearlessness.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
I think that's a word that I associate with her
with her a lot.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, And what was it about Maps and Fever to
tell that like really struck you musically and like drew
you in?
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Yeah, I think, well, I mean with all a fever
to tell, I think it was just like the energy
on it, Like it was such like an adrenaline driven
album and again so unrestrained and so unlike anything that
I feel like was really happening at the time. And
this is like two thousand and three, Like I don't
know what else is going on in two thom like
I had like a Hillary Duff moment, Like it was
like a lot of it was just very very different to.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
A lot of new metal.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Yeah, so much new metal.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
To too much new metal.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
But I used to think of Maps like in terms
of like in the context of the album as almost
being like this respite or this break from all of
these like really energetic, punky songs on here and now
that I kind of like was revisiting the album a lot,
especially in twenty twenty three when it when it turned twenty.
It's almost like I see it as like still being
connected to this sense of freedom, right, just a different
(22:00):
type of freedom. It's like this fearlessness when it came
to vulnerability and this release of emotion that to me
feels tied to all of the other sense of relief
that is on that album and that like sense of
release and the sense of like letting it all out.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Yeah, I guess we didn't really we didn't talk about
the all the stuff that was happening in two thousand and
three outside of.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
The New York rock scene, which like I feel like.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Contextualized in the past. Was like so it feel goes
like there's like a butt rock new metal moment, like
and it was. I feel like it was like so
much Karen in sort of this like post punk moment,
and then you had like Amy Lee kind of being
the like the I think like soul Woman in that
new metal moment too, sort of just being kind of
like icons and kind of presenting something I don't know,
(22:42):
unique in those specific.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Scenes for sure, for sure, I think too.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
What's interesting is that Maps is so different to what
they were doing in general, but it was also just
different to what was happening kind of.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
In both rock and mainstream pop.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
It is kind of like a weird song, Like it's
like this combination of like being like really vulnerable and
like you know, like having these like parts that are
like harsher, but like it's.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Also not like exactly like a super you know, like
a yeah yeah yeah a song in a way. So
it is a little bit of an ler I think
in a lot of ways on.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
The earlier punkier indie stuff. That was like the first
yaya yes that I heard, the first kind of stuff
that started getting them attention. There was was all that bravado,
that freedom that you were talking about, that sort of ferocity,
and for this song to be so vulnerable, which was
such a change up. Even people who went into this
album already like loving and worshiping the aa yes and
(23:37):
thinking Karen O could do everything. This song was a
huge stretch. There was such a vulnerable, sad ballad, almost
like a soul song, and that everything you know, just
everything about it so audacious, the guitar just like the
way it begins with that drone and then it just
starts to rock in that jagged way. This was just
way beyond like even what people expected from them.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
And well then you have like the video too, where
like she's literally like in tears sobbing, like you know,
in front of you, like with a camera like this
close to her face.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
So it was just that Yeah, that like sense of
like bravery. I don't even know that.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
I probably like thought of that as like being super
brave or like thinking about how vulnerable that that moment
felt at the time. But in retrospect, I think that
Karen now frequently gets associated with badassery for like that
like on stage presence and for like racking out and
for like you know, like throwing stuff and like doing.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
Whatever she want.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
But I think that that moment is just as radical
as anything else that they were they were doing.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah, Yeah, that video was like very formative, Yeah, and
got like heavy rotation on MTV, and like, yeah, it was.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
It was a huge moment.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
And then they followed it up with why Control right,
which was like horrifying Yeah too, But yeah that's Spike
Jones like directed.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Do you remember with the Kids? Yeah, I do love
that song. It's like one of my favorites on there.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
But that video for some reason, like I remember too,
like that's like kind of like when YouTube started entering
my life, and I remember that being like in high school,
Like the video, everybody was looking up on YouTube because
it was so so shocking.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
But I think that's crazy too.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
The fact that the AAAS followed up the video for
Maps with a video for why Control was kind of
like the f you like, we don't really want to
be on MTV.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Well it's well, but you were saying about Fever to
Tell and the whole album. It's such a brilliantly paced album. Yeah,
I mean it's paste almost like an old school disco album,
where like just you know, there's this pulse all the
way through it and then these slow songs like these,
you know, Maps and modern Romance, greatest live dance I've
ever seen. It's funny because when you see.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
A band again, I wasn't allowed to do anything, just
like listening to them in my room.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
And so you know when you see a band and
they're playing bars, and you see them every step along
the way as they evolve and their music gets complex
and their audience gets more complex. So I used to
see them at places like Hi Fi, which is you know,
smaller than this room. Yes, I mean it was Brownies
then yeah, like up on Avenue A and you know,
(26:12):
Mercury Lounge, places like that, Mars Bar, and then seeing
them over the years when they got to where they
were playing you know, larger rooms, they got to where
they were playing arenas, Yeah, and without losing any of
their uniqueness and being almost more of themselves in an
arena even than they were in a bar. It's really
(26:32):
amazing that a band can evolve on that level without
losing anything that made them special in original in the
first place. Ye saw them at Forest Hills, which is
like really beautiful with the Linda Linda's and Japanese brothers
and Kareno had these really beautiful words on stage she said,
you know, like to be you know, with these three
(26:53):
bands with like these like Asian women making punk rock.
Like She's like, well, you know, if I could go
back in time, I'm telling little that this would be
something that could happen someday. And it was just really
like great to see them. You know, there's still one
of the best live a dances on the planet.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Yeah, but even like it's like sampled in like a
Black Eyed Peas song, which is great and like meet
me halfway like the guitar wait, So it's yeah, I
mean it's still I.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Didn't know that very much.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I love that song, No Wonder.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
I love that song has Maps in it.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
One of my favorite but you might know them because
they're this Australian band that I love called camp Cope.
Also did like one of my favorite versions of Maps,
like a cover for like an LJ session that is
so good and I love camp Cope.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
There's Georgia Mac Yeah, Georgia one of the conference's amazing.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Yeah, three of them are amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
So the way that like that song I think keeps
having like keeps coming back, and I mean is in
Beyonce's you know work and kind of keeps keeps sloping back,
I think speaks so much to the to the resonance
of it and kind of the emotional weight of it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
I feel like on a lot of the recurring theme,
I guess in a lot of the songs that Rob
and I chose for this podcast and also that we've
just you know, gravitated towards are these songs especially by
women who kind of have had so many different legs
of their career and like so many different kind of
ways they've reached out to a new generation of artists
or have inspired continuously just like you know, whoever's coming
(28:37):
through music, but also new listeners and things like that.
And I'm curious kind of like where you see Karen
O in the future with that, because I think we
are kind of seeing this continuous life of a song
like Maths, but also just of the aas as a band,
as an influence on music, Karen as a as a
figure for I think a lot of women who want
to sing in a punk band and kind of even
(28:58):
just having like the Linda Lindez and Japanese Breakfast on
a bill with them is such a great tribute to
that just you know, even just like in age range
and kind of influence and like the styles of music
they're doing. Yeah, I'm curious, like what you kind of
see that future of the Yea Yeahs and Karen in
the future.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
I mean, I still see her like continuing to like
inspire like an entirely new generation. Like I think it's
only going to keep going, and I think people are
only going to keep discovering the music, and that song
in particular, I think is such like an interesting entry
point I mean the whole band has always done that
and found like a way to kind of preserve this
really artistic lane that they're in without it, like you
(29:34):
were saying, giving up any any of who they are. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah, and that they've found the magic formula for you know,
three very different people for staying together as a band
just by giving each other so much room. I mean,
it's really amazing that there's still a band, that there's
still a brilliant band. They make great records, they do
great live shows, but they've never been on that treadmill
where they're forcing themselves to do stuff they don't want.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
It's really inspiring.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Yeah, and they're like taking breaks, I feel like, always
just kind of done like what they feel like doing so.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
Preserve a specialist.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Karen's Opera was great and her her solo uh uh
Korean American rock solo project was like that was fantastic.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
And you know, Brian Chase is like so many like
noise projects centers, so many metal projects that he's in. Yeah,
they all find their way to combine the extreme things
that they do on their own with this band identity.
Karena's danger Mouse.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Record, Yeah forgot about Yeah, or like collaborating with people
like Perfume Genius. Yeah. I feel like they're always like
identifying kind of where they fit it, which is the
brilliant part.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
She's also done a bunch of stuff with Spike Jones
over the year. She had like, I think they've collaborated
on a song for her and stuff for Where the
Wild Things Are.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
So she's kind of been, she's kind of been everywhere.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
She was on the Oscars doing that song from her
and the little Robos looked like Ezra from Vampire Weekend.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Like, well, thank you so much for joining us, Thanks
for letting me talk about Karen.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five hundred
Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by Rolling
Stone and iHeartMedia. Rinnen Hosted by me Britney.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Spanos, Emmy rob Sheffield.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Executive produced by Jason Fine, Alex Dale and Christian Horde.
Produced by Jesse Cannon with music supervision by Eric Siler.
Thanks so much for watching and listening.
Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list. I'm
Britney Spanis and.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Rob Sheffield and we're here to shed light on
the greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them
so great.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
And today we are going to talk about Maps by
the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. That song originally was on It
did make the two thousand and four list, came out
a year before the two thousand and four list, and
then it was added to the twenty ten update and
it was at number three eighty six on the twenty
ten update and came in at number one oh one
on the new list, So it jumped up a bunch.
I absolutely love this song. This was on my ballot
(00:36):
actually for greatest Songs.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Oh yeah, it was way up in my bud. It's yeah,
absolutely one of the great iconic rock and roll love
songs of all the time.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I feel like this was a song that was very
very much in heavy rotation and Fuse and MTV two
at a very formative time for me. So it was
constantly watching Karen Oh kind of do the mic kind
of rotating thing on the video, which is one of
my favorite music videos of all time.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
It's so awesome. When did you hear it from the
first time?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Probably the year came out, so in two thousand and three,
and I feel like, yeah, it was the first time
I had really heard any music from that kind of
New York post punk revival scene. But the Ias were
my first kind of introduction. This was like an era
when I started to explore a lot more of rock
music that was going on at the time, and a
great time for rock music in that year specifically, amazing time.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
That was one of the great eras for rock music.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, And what do you remember of hearing the Ias
for the first time? You were living in New York
already by now, Yes.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
They were the greatest band in town. Really exciting time
to be in New York and be a fan of
punk rock. There wasn't a time where it was a
lot of excitement on New York bands, specifically because the
nineties were a time when rock bands were just exploding
all over the world. There were so many great innovative
and experimental bands all over the world with such different approaches,
and New York was really kind of lagging behind at
(01:59):
that time. It was really wild to have this moment
in the early two thousands where suddenly there's all this
creative blowing up in New York that completely unlike anything
that anybody had seen in yours.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, and what did you think when you first heard Maps,
especially in contrast to the other music that they had
put out two EP's right before Fever to.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Tell yeah yeah? It was so beyond what anybody thought
the Aeis could do. And I was the world's biggest
yeah yeah yeas fan at that time. In Maps was
way beyond what anybody thought that they were capable of.
It was such an exciting time in general. It was
the meet Me in the Bathroom era. The story at
this moment told so brilliantly in Lizzie Goodman's book In
the Bathroom, which is one of the great rock books
(02:40):
of the century. But there was this exciting punk rock
scene in New York at the time. The Strokes had
such a huge role in instigating it. And there was
bands like Interpol who are very like post punk, and
RD and Detached, and then there were the a Yeah Yeahs,
who were just very punk rock in your face, very already,
(03:01):
very gothy, and very excitement oriented. In a way that
was really new and exciting. Kareno always said that when
she was a kid going to rock shows in New
York and people would always sit on the floor and
just you know, just kind of sit on the floor,
zone out, listen, and she said that was my pet
peep people sitting on the floor. She said, we wanted
to be a band where nobody would be able to
(03:22):
sit on the floor. It'd be a really like disco
approach to punk rock in many ways, just everybody up,
everybody into it, very excitement oriented.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Yeah, So Karen and Brian met first at Oberlin College
and then Karen transferred to NYU and she met Nick
and it was Karen and Nick were doing acoustic music,
which I had not known until I read Meet Me
in the Bathroom and kind of saw some of the
clips from it in the documentary, And so they were
an acoustic duo for a little bit and then decided
to kind of go a little bit more of on
(03:53):
punk and pay tribute to a lot of the bands
that all three of them loved growing up and were
huge fans of. And then they as were born, they
were kind of it seemed like a lot of people
in that scene immediately were taken by them in the
same way that you were. They were already opening for
The White Stripes and the Strokes and had so much
buzz building around them even before they were signed to
a major label and released Fever to Tell, which is
(04:14):
one of one of the great albums, such a perfect.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Album, perfect album, seeing yeah, yeah, Yes, for the first time.
It was one of those life changing punk rock gigs
where everybody in the room has a new favorite band,
you know, just a few minutes into the showy, absolutely explosive,
and it was funny because for them, they thought it
was kind of a goof at first. You know, Nick
and Karen were so serious about Unit Tard, which was
(04:38):
their their goth folk acoustic duo where it was very serious,
very long, slow, sad songs and just on a whim.
One night, Karen said, you know, it'd be really fun
to do a rock and roll band, and Nick just thought,
that's really played out. Why would anybody want to do that.
They came up with their name, their sound, their first song.
(05:00):
In about ten minutes. They were just like goofing around
and they came up with Bang, which is a phenomenal
song about you know, just like punk rock, punk rock,
people having sex, and it was a real party song.
It was really dance floor song. It was a really
garage rock song. That was the mode that they were
working in so brilliantly. But Maps was a love song,
power ballad in so many ways, and a soul song
(05:23):
in so many ways.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah, what I always have really loved about Maps is
it's there's a sparse neess to it, like it's really
kind of you know, even just like that opening riff
that's happening, and then the way the drums come in,
like there is something that feels like it's as big
as it is, Like there is like such a sparse
ness to the way they attack it, whereas kind of
that you listen to a lot of the other songs
on Fever to Tell, and they're so just kind of
like messy and that like disco punkness, but there is
(05:46):
this kind of beautiful, kind of almost stripped downness in
comparison to some of the other songs that they're known
for and from that era. And I think that works
so well for this type of love song because you
can really hear kind of like the cracks and Karen's
voice as you're saying wait on the chorus and kind
of the minimalism of like the verses and stuff like,
it's just such a perfect, perfect low love song.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Yeah, it's well. When Karen first started getting attention, people
would talk about her in terms of, you know, the
great goffy punk rock queens, you know, Susie Sue or
Patti Smith or Debbie Harry or Kate Bush. But you
know it was for her growing up. Sam Cook was
her idol and you can hear a lot of that
(06:28):
in Maps. She is singing from the heart in a
way that people were not expecting from her.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, there's so much soul in the vocal delivery. And
I think again because the video was such like an
important part to how I think a lot of people
heard the song and kind of really fell in love
with the band and with Karen as a front woman.
Like the way that she delivers that song in the
video is mesmerizing, like, and she's talked about it later
on where it was so much because her boyfriend at
(06:54):
the time, Agus Andrews of the band Liars, who was
the inspiration for the song, showed up three hours late
to go on tour, Like she was genuinely upset and
really kind of you know, this was the guy who
inspired the song that she was so excited about not
showing up when he needed to show up. True bad
boyfriend in kind of like just pop rock history kind
(07:15):
of stuff, really affecting the way that she went into
this performance and real tears that she's shedding in this
high school auditorium gymnasium situation where she's performing with the band,
and it's just like almost like for me, sort of
like changes the adds so much more sadness to the
song than when you actually just hear it without the video,
Where you hear without the video, there's so much like
kind of like hope with it, and then you see
(07:36):
the video and it's like, oh, this is like kind
of heartbreaking, and I think that's such a beautiful way of,
you know, flipping the song on its head.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
The early two thousands were not a time when there
were women rock stars in the same way that there
were in the nineties. You know, the nineties was a
time when there were so many iconic, messy, chaotic, aggressive,
all sorts of different kinds of female rock stars and
completely dried up in the late nineties early two thousands
Karen was so she was out there by herself. It
(08:05):
was such a different thing to hear on the radio.
Definitely a different thing to see on MTV was to
see this female rock queen.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Yeah and I mean think one of the great rock
vocalists of all time too, Like I mean just like
an absolute powerhouse in that way.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Incredible. Well, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs is a live band
so phenomenal because three completely different kinds of musicians doing
extremely individual stuff that somehow has this perfect combination. Brian
Chase one of the all time great rock drummers. He's
so loud on maps, He's got this distinctive sound. When
(08:39):
people imitate the song, which they do a lot, which
they will discuss, they always rip off Brian's drum sound,
and yet nobody can do it. And he was a
serious avant garde jazz noise guy. He was, you know,
Anthony Brianxton is a huge inspiration for him. He was
in so many noise bands and was really interested in
that of super abstract stuff. But he just brought so
(09:03):
much heart and intensity to that kind of song you
can't imagine it without him. Next is Inner, one of
the great guitar heroes of all time.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, I mean those are It's incredible to have a
song that only has one of the most iconic drum
beats of all time, but also one of the most
iconic guitar riffs. Like it's just like such a perfect
combination happening on there. That's, like you said, a lot
of people have tried to rip off, which we can
get into, of course, we talked about in the Maxmartin
episode Since You've Been Gone. There is no hiding in
the fact that the writers of Since You've Been Gone,
(09:30):
Max Marten and Doctor Luke really wanted to do their
own version of Maps because this was like a big
indie rock pop crossover moment, not even just for the
aa as, but for that entire scene. And you know,
they fell in love with that song much like millions
of other people around the world. And so Since She'd
Been Gone was a song that was very much inspired
and kind of pulled from how Map sounds and sort
(09:52):
of that attitude and worked extremely well.
Speaker 2 (09:55):
Extremely well. But if you happen to be a fan
of the aa yes or Maps, or you even knew
that song first time you heard Since You've Been Gone,
you had to think, what are they thinking? You've got
to be kidding me. It was so obvious, it was
so funny, it was so great, just that turnaround in
the bridge where they even totally rip off that Brian
Chase drum sound. It's really great, and it's really kind
(10:17):
of beautiful tribute because this is the kind of song
that they're trying to do. They're trying to do a
very much Strokes ya ya yeahs kind of song in
a pop context and incredibly brilliantly.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, and they pull it off. Kelly Clarkson was the
perfect person.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
I do it.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yes, it's funny that everybody in teen pop wanted to
rip that song. We cannot forget the great the legend
Ashley Simpson doing La La to Me, that is one
of the gray pop hits of the two thousands, along
with Since You've Been Gone, could not be more blatant
as a beautiful and brilliant rip of the ya yeah
yeahs and Maps.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I mean, I would say that the aaas were very
very much kind of a blueprint for a lot of
pop stars at this time in terms of kind of,
you know, making more of a pop rock sound, kind
of that indie pop sound that a song like Maps
did so well, was the way that that spread across
pop music was so important, and that it's so much
a part of a lot of early Ashley Simpson music.
(11:13):
You know, I would say even kind of goes as
far as when we get into like the Miley, Selena
Demi early years of their releasing music, there is kind
of you can kind of see that through line from
what was happening in indie rock and indie pop and
pop music in the early two thousands to like what
they were doing even a decade later, like you could
still kind of hear that influence of a song like Maps,
(11:35):
like everyone's still trying to make maps, even like a
decade later in the in the teen pop sphere, the
song again continues to have so much life and even
just a few years well, I don't know, I guess
it's been a while now. In my head, it happened
like two years ago. But with the album Lemonade, Beyonce
interpolates Maps on the song hold Up and of course
has another another life for the song, which is I
(11:57):
mean that whole song is just like incredible, That whole
el was incredible, but like what a fun thing to
have Beyonce saying they don't Love You like I Love
You on anything.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Well, a truly great and shocking moment is just that,
the whole Lemonade experience and the whole like Lemonade event,
and just what Beyonce did in terms of like this
song that is. I mean, honestly, the shock of Lemonade
is hard to describe in so many ways, but hold
Up is definitely like a shocking part of it. And
then it was really a shock at the time to listen.
(12:27):
I remember that Saturday night of listening to Lemonade and
hold Up comes up, and it's extremely extremely surprising. Yeah,
it's funny because it was Lemonade came out the week
that Prince died, and Prince died on Thursday, and the
album came out on Saturday night and Friday night. The
Yeah Yeah Yes played a secret gig, a fans gig.
(12:48):
It was for a film festival in Karen's husband directed
a It was a documentary with the great rock photographer
Mick Rock. So they did a secret show and it
was really amazing because they hadn't played in a while,
and because Bowie had just died. They did a set
of Bowie covers as a tribute. But because Prince had
just died the previous day. They did when You Were Mine, Yeah,
as a beautiful Prince tribute and they had like dads
(13:11):
from TV on the radio and it was just a
beautiful tribute. And afterwards I was thinking, Wow, they were
in a really good mood. They were really having fun,
Like it was really kind of beautiful. And then you know,
lemonade drops the next day at what message Nick that?
And I was like, now I understand why you guys
were in such a cheerful mood yesterday. You had no
idea you were about to have such a big weekend.
But it was like, really just kind of beautiful that
(13:33):
the story of this song just never ends.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, I want to have your opinion on the indie
Slee's revival that people can't stop talking about.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
And I feel like it's a weird.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
It's like a sort of like a fashion thing and
obviously pulls so much from Karen O and from the Aias,
and it's so much inspired by them. It's kind of
funny to me that we haven't seen like more more
bands pop up sort of pulling from from this era
and kind of have seen it resurface in a in
a musical way beyond just kind of like the aesthetic
and sort of the meet Me in the Bathroom of
(14:03):
it all, beyond of course the music. So I was
wondering what your opinion then, do you feel like we're
going to see like another sort of revival of this
of the sound and of bands and artists kind of
inspired by by the aaas and a lot of their peers.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Absolutely, well, we're in a full blown Indie Sleeze moment,
which is, let's face it never going to end. Yeah,
it's just a timeless aesthetic. And it's funny that the
name for it, Indie Sleeves, is pretty new. Nobody called
it that at the time, and it's one of those
things where a movement and an aesthetic gets a perfect
name after the fact. Nobody called rockabilly rockabilly in the fifties.
(14:37):
That name just came later. Nobody made film noir and
called it film noir. That came later. Indie Sleeze is
a perfect example of that. People didn't call it Indie
Sleeze at the time, but it's a perfect name for
what it was and what it means. And it's very
much driven by Meet Me in the Bathroom, which definitely
takes this moment and makes such a great, timeless rock
and roll story out of it. I feel like Indie
Sleeves is forever.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
I feel like, especially for a a lot of people
who were kind of teenagers in the two thousands and
reading like Nylon magazine and like Spin and all of that, Like,
there was so much absorbing of that scene that kind
of felt so distant, you know, it felt like such
a such so much more of like an adult scene
than than others. And I think that people are kind
of getting there at their chance to relive that, you know,
(15:20):
like and going and listening to a lot of those
bands and be able to see a lot of them
still live, which is also that the best part is
getting to kind of like go catch an NOLCA sound
System show, see the AAA, see like the Strokes and
all of that, and get to kind of live out
a lot of those those musical memories.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Yes, yeah, and so many of the bands from this moment,
you know, they had this Indiesley's moment that's iconic, but
they had long, amazing careers and the yeah yeah yeahs.
Although this is by far the most famous song, they
have one of the most astounding catalogs of rock music
of the past fifty years. Yeah, everything that they've done,
(15:55):
they are still doing amazing albums to writing amazing songs,
still doing amazing live shows after twenty years when most
people kind of thought that they'd be a just one
and done sort of you know, quick laugh, thanks for
the memories kind of Yeah, band that they had just
amazing staying power and so much that. I think it's
(16:15):
just because Karen O was a start at time when
she was a Korean American rock star at a time
when that was so unheard of. Definitely nothing like it
at that time in that sort of new metal era.
But it's such a exciting moment for all these bands
to be listening to each other, taking ideas from each other,
pop stars, punk rockers, rappers, always hearing each other at
(16:37):
festivals and ward shows, and being influenced by each other
in these really exciting ways. The AA is obsessed with
Missy And while they were making their first album, they
were listening to Under Construction constantly, and the Missy Elliott
was their template for what they wanted to do. Timbaland
was what they wanted to do. They wanted something that
emotionally and musically comprehensive and exciting, and you can hear
(16:58):
a lot of that in Maps. It's really like very
much Missy Timbland's song in terms of just the emotion
of it and also the experimentation of it.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah. Yeah, I had no idea that Missy was such
a big influence on them, and also like beyond and
of course you know just the amount of being alive
and listening to Missy Elliott's hard not to be a
super fan, but yeah, I know idea that there's such
like a direct kind of inspiration on that era for them.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Yeah, and under Construction such a classic Missy album, and
it's funny. At the MTV Video and Music Awards in
summer two thousand and four, Karen actually got to meet
Missy and she said, your heart is so big, we
get lost in that shit. I thought there was such
a beautiful way to sum up Missy's impact on music,
but also just how you can hear that in Maps,
that just the idea of like a heart so big
that you get lost in.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Also with the Map story, have you heard the theory
about my angus please day being the reason?
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Why do tell?
Speaker 1 (17:47):
I've heard this once and I haven't like let it go,
and one day I will find out from Kareno herself.
When it happens, I'll share the wealth. But the theory
is that MAP stands for my Angus Please day, of course,
inspired by Angus Andrews of Liars, the inspiration for the song,
the inspiration for the crying and the video, and I
think that's perfect. I love that so much.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Yeah, yeah, So with the song being about Angus of
course using his own band, Liars, and there's a lot
of theories that the song the Other Side of Mount
heart Attack is sort of his response song to Maps,
Like how do you feel about that theory? Do you
feel like that matches.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Up Liars such a great band themselves. I love a
lot of Liars albums. I'm intrigued by the idea of this.
It's like this sort of like back forth dialogue. I
have to say, this is very brittany, like you're dying
to mention at least one of the Jonas brothers right now.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I did think of them, and I have thought of them.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
It's a very Disney Channel pop era approach to like
punk rock. It's like who's the Hillary Duff and who
is the Aaron Carter and who is the Jonas of this?
Speaker 1 (18:50):
This musicians are dating. There's a song, and there's a
response song. It's just the way the world works, and
I don't want it any other way, you know. So
even if it's not that song, I feel like they're
one in there. I'm gonna I'll dig through the Lyar's
catalog later and try to find it.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I love that well, just clearly part of what makes
Maps the Driver's License of its era and an ongoing
story that will just keep getting rewritten in retail.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah, I'll look for any songs with like a k
in there. It's like my Karen. Please stay well, we'll
do we'll do some research on us. We are joined
now by Rolling Stones Stuput music editor Julisa Lopez. Thank
you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Guys, excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, so do you want to tell us a little
bit about maybe the first time that you heard Maps.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
I remember that album like when I discovered it, just
like being something that I played over and over and over.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
I was obsessed with it. I was like in love
with it.
Speaker 3 (19:51):
And I think part of it is because I grew
up my parents were so strict I grew up so
like restricted and like had this like super Nicaraguan family
that wouldn't let me do anything, and there was so
much freedom on that album. It was like so free
and chaotic. Karena was just like doing whatever she wanted.
So I feel like when you discover that you're a
teenager and you're like, oh my god, this is what
I want. Feel like having that feeling, especially like as
(20:13):
a teenager when you feel restricted and then seeing you know,
I think by the time then I got around to
like the videos too, and like thinking about her live
now just someone who went crazy when she was on
stage and she'd be like yelping and like making these
like wild sounds.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
On stage that were so visceral.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
I think it was just like something that felt really
aspirational to me as someone who like wasn't again allowed
to do anything because of my very in a Garagin family.
I think it was also something about seeing Karena and
such like a masculine sort of like rock centered world
and also is like, you know, like a multi ethnic
woman too who had that kind of freedom and who
wasn't afraid to do that.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
I think was like huge for me.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
I remember like feeling like there was like a similar
like energy with like mia and like that kind of
freedom and that like you know, fearlessness.
Speaker 4 (21:02):
I think that's a word that I associate with her
with her a lot.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, And what was it about Maps and Fever to
tell that like really struck you musically and like drew
you in?
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Yeah, I think, well, I mean with all a fever
to tell, I think it was just like the energy
on it, Like it was such like an adrenaline driven
album and again so unrestrained and so unlike anything that
I feel like was really happening at the time. And
this is like two thousand and three, Like I don't
know what else is going on in two thom like
I had like a Hillary Duff moment, Like it was
like a lot of it was just very very different to.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
A lot of new metal.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Yeah, so much new metal.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
To too much new metal.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
But I used to think of Maps like in terms
of like in the context of the album as almost
being like this respite or this break from all of
these like really energetic, punky songs on here and now
that I kind of like was revisiting the album a lot,
especially in twenty twenty three when it when it turned twenty.
It's almost like I see it as like still being
connected to this sense of freedom, right, just a different
(22:00):
type of freedom. It's like this fearlessness when it came
to vulnerability and this release of emotion that to me
feels tied to all of the other sense of relief
that is on that album and that like sense of
release and the sense of like letting it all out.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Yeah, I guess we didn't really we didn't talk about
the all the stuff that was happening in two thousand and
three outside of.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
The New York rock scene, which like I feel like.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Contextualized in the past. Was like so it feel goes
like there's like a butt rock new metal moment, like
and it was. I feel like it was like so
much Karen in sort of this like post punk moment,
and then you had like Amy Lee kind of being
the like the I think like soul Woman in that
new metal moment too, sort of just being kind of
like icons and kind of presenting something I don't know,
(22:42):
unique in those specific.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Scenes for sure, for sure, I think too.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
What's interesting is that Maps is so different to what
they were doing in general, but it was also just
different to what was happening kind of.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
In both rock and mainstream pop.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
It is kind of like a weird song, Like it's
like this combination of like being like really vulnerable and
like you know, like having these like parts that are
like harsher, but like it's.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Also not like exactly like a super you know, like
a yeah yeah yeah a song in a way. So
it is a little bit of an ler I think
in a lot of ways on.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
The earlier punkier indie stuff. That was like the first
yaya yes that I heard, the first kind of stuff
that started getting them attention. There was was all that bravado,
that freedom that you were talking about, that sort of ferocity,
and for this song to be so vulnerable, which was
such a change up. Even people who went into this
album already like loving and worshiping the aa yes and
(23:37):
thinking Karen O could do everything. This song was a
huge stretch. There was such a vulnerable, sad ballad, almost
like a soul song, and that everything you know, just
everything about it so audacious, the guitar just like the
way it begins with that drone and then it just
starts to rock in that jagged way. This was just
way beyond like even what people expected from them.
Speaker 4 (23:59):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
And well then you have like the video too, where
like she's literally like in tears sobbing, like you know,
in front of you, like with a camera like this
close to her face.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
So it was just that Yeah, that like sense of
like bravery. I don't even know that.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
I probably like thought of that as like being super
brave or like thinking about how vulnerable that that moment
felt at the time. But in retrospect, I think that
Karen now frequently gets associated with badassery for like that
like on stage presence and for like racking out and
for like you know, like throwing stuff and like doing.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
Whatever she want.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
But I think that that moment is just as radical
as anything else that they were they were doing.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Yeah, Yeah, that video was like very formative, Yeah, and
got like heavy rotation on MTV, and like, yeah, it was.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
It was a huge moment.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
And then they followed it up with why Control right,
which was like horrifying Yeah too, But yeah that's Spike
Jones like directed.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Do you remember with the Kids? Yeah, I do love
that song. It's like one of my favorites on there.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
But that video for some reason, like I remember too,
like that's like kind of like when YouTube started entering
my life, and I remember that being like in high school,
Like the video, everybody was looking up on YouTube because
it was so so shocking.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
But I think that's crazy too.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
The fact that the AAAS followed up the video for
Maps with a video for why Control was kind of
like the f you like, we don't really want to
be on MTV.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Well it's well, but you were saying about Fever to
Tell and the whole album. It's such a brilliantly paced album. Yeah,
I mean it's paste almost like an old school disco album,
where like just you know, there's this pulse all the
way through it and then these slow songs like these,
you know, Maps and modern Romance, greatest live dance I've
ever seen. It's funny because when you see.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
A band again, I wasn't allowed to do anything, just
like listening to them in my room.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
And so you know when you see a band and
they're playing bars, and you see them every step along
the way as they evolve and their music gets complex
and their audience gets more complex. So I used to
see them at places like Hi Fi, which is you know,
smaller than this room. Yes, I mean it was Brownies
then yeah, like up on Avenue A and you know,
(26:12):
Mercury Lounge, places like that, Mars Bar, and then seeing
them over the years when they got to where they
were playing you know, larger rooms, they got to where
they were playing arenas, Yeah, and without losing any of
their uniqueness and being almost more of themselves in an
arena even than they were in a bar. It's really
(26:32):
amazing that a band can evolve on that level without
losing anything that made them special in original in the
first place. Ye saw them at Forest Hills, which is
like really beautiful with the Linda Linda's and Japanese brothers
and Kareno had these really beautiful words on stage she said,
you know, like to be you know, with these three
(26:53):
bands with like these like Asian women making punk rock.
Like She's like, well, you know, if I could go
back in time, I'm telling little that this would be
something that could happen someday. And it was just really
like great to see them. You know, there's still one
of the best live a dances on the planet.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
Yeah, but even like it's like sampled in like a
Black Eyed Peas song, which is great and like meet
me halfway like the guitar wait, So it's yeah, I
mean it's still I.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Didn't know that very much.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I love that song, No Wonder.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
I love that song has Maps in it.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
One of my favorite but you might know them because
they're this Australian band that I love called camp Cope.
Also did like one of my favorite versions of Maps,
like a cover for like an LJ session that is
so good and I love camp Cope.
Speaker 4 (27:49):
There's Georgia Mac Yeah, Georgia one of the conference's amazing.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Yeah, three of them are amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
So the way that like that song I think keeps
having like keeps coming back, and I mean is in
Beyonce's you know work and kind of keeps keeps sloping back,
I think speaks so much to the to the resonance
of it and kind of the emotional weight of it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
I feel like on a lot of the recurring theme,
I guess in a lot of the songs that Rob
and I chose for this podcast and also that we've
just you know, gravitated towards are these songs especially by
women who kind of have had so many different legs
of their career and like so many different kind of
ways they've reached out to a new generation of artists
or have inspired continuously just like you know, whoever's coming
(28:37):
through music, but also new listeners and things like that.
And I'm curious kind of like where you see Karen
O in the future with that, because I think we
are kind of seeing this continuous life of a song
like Maths, but also just of the aas as a band,
as an influence on music, Karen as a as a
figure for I think a lot of women who want
to sing in a punk band and kind of even
(28:58):
just having like the Linda Lindez and Japanese Breakfast on
a bill with them is such a great tribute to
that just you know, even just like in age range
and kind of influence and like the styles of music
they're doing. Yeah, I'm curious, like what you kind of
see that future of the Yea Yeahs and Karen in
the future.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
I mean, I still see her like continuing to like
inspire like an entirely new generation. Like I think it's
only going to keep going, and I think people are
only going to keep discovering the music, and that song
in particular, I think is such like an interesting entry
point I mean the whole band has always done that
and found like a way to kind of preserve this
really artistic lane that they're in without it, like you
(29:34):
were saying, giving up any any of who they are. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Yeah, and that they've found the magic formula for you know,
three very different people for staying together as a band
just by giving each other so much room. I mean,
it's really amazing that there's still a band, that there's
still a brilliant band. They make great records, they do
great live shows, but they've never been on that treadmill
where they're forcing themselves to do stuff they don't want.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
It's really inspiring.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Yeah, and they're like taking breaks, I feel like, always
just kind of done like what they feel like doing so.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
Preserve a specialist.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Karen's Opera was great and her her solo uh uh
Korean American rock solo project was like that was fantastic.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
And you know, Brian Chase is like so many like
noise projects centers, so many metal projects that he's in. Yeah,
they all find their way to combine the extreme things
that they do on their own with this band identity.
Karena's danger Mouse.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Record, Yeah forgot about Yeah, or like collaborating with people
like Perfume Genius. Yeah. I feel like they're always like
identifying kind of where they fit it, which is the
brilliant part.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
She's also done a bunch of stuff with Spike Jones
over the year. She had like, I think they've collaborated
on a song for her and stuff for Where the
Wild Things Are.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
So she's kind of been, she's kind of been everywhere.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
She was on the Oscars doing that song from her
and the little Robos looked like Ezra from Vampire Weekend.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
Like, well, thank you so much for joining us, Thanks
for letting me talk about Karen.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five hundred
Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by Rolling
Stone and iHeartMedia. Rinnen Hosted by me Britney.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Spanos, Emmy rob Sheffield.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Executive produced by Jason Fine, Alex Dale and Christian Horde.
Produced by Jesse Cannon with music supervision by Eric Siler.
Thanks so much for watching and listening.
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