5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It’s Blitz! (‘Zero’)
“get your leather on”
While It’s Blitz! is, with this song as no exception, a big, brilliantly synthy album, ‘Zero’ also reminds me of the Ramones (and Blondie) in its brash, punky attitude. In the music video, Karen O puts on her fashionable yet still defiant studded leather jacket, and emerges from the stage curtain onto a rain-slicked, street-lit alleyway, and thence on into the joyous anonymity of the city. It’s a dance anthem for the outsider, a punk rock statement for the indie generation - “you’re zero/what’s your name/no-one’s going to ask you/better find out where they want you to go”.
The schlocky intro to the video feels very Ramones-y also, but in fact the very playfulness of the modern indie video was something they helped to create. There’s also the film-school elements, the aesthetics of today as well as of the 70s punk milieu - the Kino-Eye (even on Stargate now!) quality of the latest YYYs symbol. On top of that there’s the exhortations to confidence and creativity, as well the somewhat cynical view of hedonism matching the pleasure imbued in the song.
(from this previous post)
‘Zero’ defines It’s Blitz! in the same way that ‘Hanging On The Telephone’ defines Blondie’s Parallel Lines, or (almost) how ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’ defines Ramones.
Posted 3 years ago 1 note
