It's Blitz! | ||||
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Studio album by Yeah Yeah Yeahs | ||||
Released | March 6, 2009 | |||
Recorded | 2008 | |||
Studio | The Boat and Seedy Underbelly in Los Angeles; Long View Farm Studios in North Brookfield; Sonic Ranch in Tornillo; Stay Gold Studio in Brooklyn | |||
Genre | Synthpunk,alternative pop,alternative dance | |||
Length | 41:49 | |||
Label | Dress Up, DGC, Interscope | |||
Producer | Nick Launay, David Andrew Sitek | |||
Yeah Yeah Yeahs chronology | ||||
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Singles from It's Blitz! | ||||
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Professional ratings | |
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Aggregate scores | |
Source | Rating |
Metacritic | 82/100 |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | |
The Daily Telegraph | |
Entertainment Weekly | B+ |
The Guardian | |
Los Angeles Times | |
MSN Music | A− |
NME | 8/10 |
Pitchfork Media | 8.1/10 |
Rolling Stone | |
Spin | 9/10 |
It's Blitz! is the third studio album by American indie rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs, released on March 6, 2009, by Interscope Records. It was originally set for release on April 13, 2009. However, after being leaked to the Internet on February 22, the release date was pushed forward to March 9 for the digital version and March 31 for the physical version.
The album was produced by Nick Launay (Nick Cave, Arcade Fire, Talking Heads, Public Image Ltd), along with TV on the Radio's David Andrew Sitek. It spawned three singles: "Zero", "Heads Will Roll", and "Skeletons". It's Blitz! was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album at the 2010 Grammy Awards.
According to Nick Launay, one of the two producers, the recording of the album was unusual for being largely written and created in the studio at a time when record labels have cut back considerably on production budgets. The few songs the band did take along to the first sessions were later altered significantly. Launay described a typical session as follows:
Brian [Chase] would play lots of different drumbeats and we'd record it, chop it up and then make a groove loop out of it. Nick [Zinner] would then just jam to it, and we'd come up with an interesting rhythm part. Karen [O] would listen to that and come up with a vocal melody and then suddenly everything would fall into place.
The album sessions took place over several months in 2008, during which time there were numerous breaks "to get inspired".
It's Blitz! received universal acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 82, based on 36 reviews.The Guardian's Caroline Sullivan commended the band's more dance-oriented sound, writing their "glittery new disco sound suits them very well. It's all cool, brittle catchiness, with a debt owed to Eat to the Beat-era Blondie". Emily Mackay of the NME wrote that "It's Blitz!'s heartfelt love letter to the transcendent possibilities of the dancefloor is an unexpectedly emphatic reassertion of why Yeah Yeah Yeahs are one of the most exciting bands of this decade", while Spin's Charles Aaron said that it is "the alternative pop album of the decade—one that imbues The Killers' Hot Fuss and MGMT's Oracular Spectacular with a remarkable emotional depth and finesse". Theon Weber of The Village Voice said that Karen O "isn't revealed to us through the record's lyrics, which are as gnomic as ever, but through attitudes, tones, put-on sneers, and audible grins."Mojo gave it a score of four stars out of five and wrote that the band has "managed to mix the human and the electronic, the emotional and the artsy, the fashion-forward and the oddly retro."