Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list. I'm Britney Spanis and.
I'm Rob Sheffield and we're here to shed light on the greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them so great.
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 actually for greatest Songs.
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.
Yeah.
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.
It's so awesome. When did you hear it from the first time?
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.
That was one of the great eras for rock music.
Yeah, And what do you remember of hearing the Ias for the first time? You were living in New York already by now, Yes.
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
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.
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.
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 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, 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 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.
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 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 one of one of the great albums, such a perfect.
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 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. 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 in so many ways.
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
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.
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 in Maps. She is singing from the heart in a way that people were not expecting from her.
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 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 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 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.
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 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.
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.
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 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 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.
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, 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 of that attitude and worked extremely well.
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 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.
Yeah, and they pull it off. Kelly Clarkson was the perfect person.
I do it.
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.
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.
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, 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 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.
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. 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. 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 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 the story of this song just never ends.
Yeah, I want to have your opinion on the indie Slee's revival that people can't stop talking about.
And I feel like it's a weird.
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
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.
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. 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.
Yeah.
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, 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.
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, 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 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 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
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.
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.
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.
Also with the Map story, have you heard the theory about my angus please day being the reason?
Why do tell?
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.
I love that.
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.
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.
I did think of them, and I have thought of them.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Guys, excited to be here.
Yeah, so do you want to tell us a little bit about maybe the first time that you heard Maps.
I remember that album like when I discovered it, just like being something that I played over and over and over.
I was obsessed with it. I was like in love with it.
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 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.
On stage that were so visceral.
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.
I think was like huge for me.
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.
I think that's a word that I associate with her with her a lot.
Yeah, And what was it about Maps and Fever to tell that like really struck you musically and like drew you in?
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.
A lot of new metal.
Yeah, so much new metal.
To too much new metal.
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
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.
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.
The New York rock scene, which like I feel like.
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, unique in those specific.
Scenes for sure, for sure, I think too.
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.
In both rock and mainstream pop.
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.
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.
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 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.
Yeah, exactly.
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.
So it was just that Yeah, that like sense of like bravery. I don't even know that.
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.
Whatever she want.
But I think that that moment is just as radical as anything else that they were they were doing.
Yeah, Yeah, that video was like very formative, Yeah, and got like heavy rotation on MTV, and like, yeah, it was.
It was a huge moment.
And then they followed it up with why Control right, which was like horrifying Yeah too, But yeah that's Spike Jones like directed.
Do you remember with the Kids? Yeah, I do love that song. It's like one of my favorites on there.
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.
But I think that's crazy too.
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.
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.
A band again, I wasn't allowed to do anything, just like listening to them in my room.
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, 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 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 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.
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.
Didn't know that very much.
That's crazy.
I love that song, No Wonder.
I love that song has Maps in it.
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.
There's Georgia Mac Yeah, Georgia one of the conference's amazing.
Yeah, three of them are amazing. Yeah.
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.
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 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 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.
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 were saying, giving up any any of who they are. Yeah.
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.
Yeah.
It's really inspiring.
Yeah, and they're like taking breaks, I feel like, always just kind of done like what they feel like doing so.
Preserve a specialist.
Karen's Opera was great and her her solo uh uh Korean American rock solo project was like that was fantastic.
Yeah.
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.
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.
Yeah.
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.
So she's kind of been, she's kind of been everywhere.
She was on the Oscars doing that song from her and the little Robos looked like Ezra from Vampire Weekend.
Like, well, thank you so much for joining us, Thanks for letting me talk about Karen.
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.
Spanos, Emmy rob Sheffield.
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.