Fever to Tell

Yeah Yeah Yeahs were formed in 2000 by singer/songwriter Karen O and guitarist Nick Zinner as a "trashy, punky, [and] grimy" band inspired by their observations of the contemporary Ohio music scene.^[1][2] Before their debut performance as an opening act for the White Stripes,^[3] drummer Brian Chase was added to the lineup a day before the show, making a trio.^[4] By the end of 2002, the band's first extended play and energetic live shows netted them international attention.^[5][6] They rejected subsequent offers from major record labels to finance and produce their debut album, Fever to Tell, as they felt it would compromise their creative control.^[7]

Yeah Yeah Yeahs conceived Fever to Tell in 2002, cancelling a performance at that year's Reading Festival in order to focus on recording the album.^[8] They chose to record at the low-budget Headgear Studio in Brooklyn, where they jointly produced it with David Andrew Sitek, then a member of TV on the Radio.^[9][10] The band hired him because they "felt immediately like we were family" and "we didn't know anyone else."^[11] The album was mixed by Zinner and sound engineer Alan Moulder in London.^[12] Afterwards, they signed with Interscope Records to distribute the record.^[11]

Fever to Tell has been described as art punk,^[11] garage rock,^[13] alternative rock,^[14] and indie rock.^[14] The album also uses elements of dance-punk and new wave, among others.^[15][16] Critics have likened its sound to the bands Siouxsie and the Banshees, Led Zeppelin and the Velvet Underground,^[17] and the musicians Lydia Lunch and PJ Harvey.^[18]

The musical style of Fever to Tell built on what the band had previously produced. Its lyrics were written by lead vocalist Karen O and explore female sexuality, heartbreak and intimacy.^[19] Karen O explained the album's content in an interview for The Believer:

When we were all living in New York and we started the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, I was twenty-one. I was at the peak of being completely absorbed in the New York night scene and the New York music and social scene, although there wasn’t much of a music scene at that point. But the whole hedonistic side of me was kind of trumping everything else. We were feeding off that manic street energy. It really did feel much dirtier and more antagonistic. And as the years have gone by, I think we’re more removed from just being there. So we had to rely on other things that were more inside of us. I think that’s when the second half of our Fever to Tell album started happening, like "Y Control" and "Maps" and this whole other side of us was starting to get nurtured. We were relying more on our emotions and what was going on inside. The inner turmoil rather than the outer turmoil. What feels the most different for me, as far as what’s going to affect the way that we write, is my age, turning twenty-six. It feels like an old twenty-six.^[20]

Yeah Yeah Yeahs began promoting Fever to Tell in November 2002, releasing the EP Machine—consisting of three songs from the album's recording—to moderate success.^[21] Interscope then released Fever to Tell on May 3, 2003.^[22] "Date with the Night" was the first single released from the album in April 2003, which became the band's first entry on the UK singles chart at number 16. "Pin" followed in June, which peaked at 29 in the UK and 34 on the Scottish Singles Chart.^[23] "Maps" was released in September 2003 as the album's third single, and became their first appearance in February 2004 on the US Billboard Hot 100 at number 87. Its music video became a hit on MTV and rock radio and helped triple sales of the album.^[11] "Y Control" was the final single produced from Fever to Tell, released in June 2004. Experiencing similar success to "Pin", it gained attention for its controversial music video.^[24]

More information Aggregate scores, Source ...

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	85/100[25]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[26]
Blender	[27]
Entertainment Weekly	B[28]
The Guardian	[16]
NME	8/10[29]
Pitchfork	7.4/10[30]
Q	[31]
Rolling Stone	[17]
Uncut	[32]
The Village Voice	B+[33]

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Fever to Tell debuted at number 67 on the Billboard 200 on May 17, 2003.^[34] It remained there for 28 weeks, exiting the chart on April 3, 2004. It is tied with the band's third album, It's Blitz! (2009), for most weeks spent on the chart.^[35] In March 2009, Fever to Tell reached sales of more than one million copies worldwide.^[36] As of March 2013, the album had sold 640,000 copies in United States.^[37]

Fever to Tell received universal acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 85, based on 27 reviews.^[25] Rolling Stone's Jon Pareles believed Fever to Tell was evidence that "the New York rock renaissance runs deeper and wilder than the Strokes." He greatly praised Karen O's energy and performances, calling her "one excitable girl."^[17] Heather Phares of AllMusic praised "Karen O's unearthly vocals, Nick Zinner's ever-expanding guitar prowess, and Brian Chase's powerful drumming" but felt that, due to "poor sequencing", Fever to Tell was "at different times, scattered and monotonous."^[26] Entertainment Weekly's Josh Tyrangiel praised the band and deemed Fever to Tell "the Karen O show." However, he opined the album "feels a lot like a series of quickies — exhausting, fun, but a bit empty."^[28]

Andrew Perry from The Daily Telegraph called it an "exhilarating dose of lo-fi garage-rock".^[38] In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau observed "a striking sound" that is "both big and punk, never a natural combo", and highlighted by Zinner's "dangerous riffs". He had reservations about the subject matter, however; while noting "two human-scale songs toward the end", Christgau said "to care about this band you have to find Karen O's fuck-me persona provocative if not seductive, and since I've never been one for the sex-is-combat thing, I find it silly or obnoxious depending on who's taking it seriously."^[33]

Fever to Tell was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album and was certified gold in both the United States and the United Kingdom. The video for "Maps" received nominations for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and the MTV2 Award at the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards. The New York Times chose Fever to Tell as the best album of 2003.^[39]

More information Retrospective reviews, Review scores ...

Professional ratings

Retrospective reviews
Review scores
Source	Rating
The Line of Best Fit	10/10[40]
Louder Sound	[41]
Uncut	[42]

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Fever to Tell has impacted several genres, especially within NYC's early-'00s rock resurgence. In 2018, it was deemed "one of [that scene's] few enduring albums" by Steve Foxe of Paste. The site rated it #15 out of the 50 all-time greatest garage rock albums.^[13] Within indie rock, Fever has left "an indelible mark". In 2022, NME's Erica Campbell wrote that it paved the way for the genre's future "devil may care frontwom[e]n and an abundance of rule-breaking by those seeking post-punk creativity."^[43] In 2023, uDiscover Music's Laura Stavropoulos wrote that dance-rock, NYC's next wave, was put "into motion" through the "groove-laden" album. Within the era's "quickly calcifying" garage rock revival, Stavropoulos wrote that it provided "a sense of fun and urgency" to the scene.^[14]

Fever's 2017 reissue garnered critical acclaim. The Line of Best Fit's Joe Goggins wrote that it was "still [the band's] masterpiece" and dubbed it "a chaotic symphony in sex, debauchery and bottomless anxiety," positively comparing it to PJ Harvey's 1993 album Rid of Me.^[40] Uncut's Michael Bonner praised that it stayed "as visceral, as exciting, [and] as confounding as ever."^[42]

In June 2005, the album was ranked number 89 on Spin magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Albums, 1985–2005.^[44] Featuring in the 2010 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Fever to Tell was hailed as "the coolest and cleverest record of 2003".^[12] In 2009, the album was named by NME, Pitchfork, and Rolling Stone the fifth, 24th, and 28th best album of the 2000s decade, respectively.^[45][46][47] In 2019, the album was ranked 38th on The Guardian's 100 Best Albums of the 21st Century list.^[48] In 2020, it was ranked number 377 on Rolling Stone's Top 500 Albums of All-Time.^[49]

Credits adapted from the liner notes of Fever to Tell.^[53]

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

• Brian Chase – drums
• Karen O – vocals
• Nick Zinner – guitars, drum machine

Technical personnel

• David Andrew Sitek – production (all tracks); mixing (tracks 8, 11)
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs – production
• Paul Mahajan – engineering
• Alan Moulder – mixing^[a] (tracks 1–7, 9, 10)
• Nick Zinner – mixing^[a] (tracks 1–7, 9, 10)
• Rick Levy – mixing assistance
• Chris Coady – post-production (tracks 8, 11)
• Howie Weinberg – mastering^[b]
• Roger Lian – track editing
• Cody Critcheloe – artwork