Zero

Yeah Yeah Yeahs formed in 2000 with a mission enliven the New York City music scene, which they thought had gotten boring and predictable. They had this same attitude in 2009 when they released "Zero," a song where lead singer Karen O jabs the listener with a shot of adrenaline. "We were living in New York at a time when people stood there with their arms crossed in the audience, and just felt really indifferent or ambivalent about music," she told Clash. "You wanted to just smack them, you know? Break a beer bottle over their head, to wake 'em up and make them feel something, and that's still what we want to do now. We want to shake the unshakable, to stir things up, and that's a lot of the spirit of 'Zero.' It's like, Come on man! Come on! Just feel something, escape, whatever, whatever the emotion is just feel it!"

"Zero" was the lead single from Yeah Yeah Yeahs' third album, It's Blitz!, which found them downplaying their guitars and adopting a new synthesizer-driven sound. Frontwoman Karen O told The Sun March 13, 2009: "This is a new era for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. This record got our confidence back and was really a move towards enjoying being in a band again. We started off writing this record with guitars, but gradually the sound developed into what you hear now. We chose synths because they allow for more space. They have a quality which is different to Nick (Zinner's) grungy guitar sound. But, at the same time, Nick's synth work mimics what he does on the guitar. So in a way it was a natural progression."

This song, along with the rest of the album, was produced by TV on the Radio's David Andrew Sitek and Nick Launay.