When Boston Calling unveiled its 2023 lineup last month, one of the names on the poster that jumped out loudest was Yeah Yeah Yeahs, set to perform live on the Friday night slate just before Foo Fighters. We’re pretty hyped on hearing the New York art-punk trio’s classics like “Heads Will Roll” and “Maps” to kick off a beautiful spring weekend in Allston, but we’re also quickly reminded Karen O and the boys are in town with a fancy new record that holds up with the OGs.
Today (February 7), the Yeah Yeah Yeahs unveiled a bunch of other live dates, including shows with The Faint and Perfume Genius, and with it a new music video for “Blacktop.” The slow-burn rouser is one of a handful of ace tracks on the band’s GRAMMY-nominated 2022 album, Cool It Down, which hit back in September via Secretly Canadian.
“‘Blacktop’ stuck out to me early on, the demo was very stripped down instrumentally and emotionally,” says Karen O. “It was a step towards what radical closeness feels like after a long separation. Each record has one of these diamonds in the rough that just feels like flying to me.”
Of the video, viewable below, she adds: “It felt right to keep the video as stripped down and dare I say beautiful in its naïveté. David Black put us in front of his ’70s analog video camera with the intention to pull stills for band shots. He had me sing to ‘Blacktop’ before I had even memorized the lyrics, I thought I knew the song by heart but it felt like an introduction, like meeting it for the first time. It wasn’t intended to end up as a video and as a return to the earliest visuals from the record it completes a circle; we’re so happy we have it, a simple layered performance for a deceptively simple song. We hope you enjoy.”
Dive in and wait for spring.
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