New Thing #182: Despair by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Yeah_Yeah_YeahAs you can tell by the picture, this week features another Starbucks free download. But that's not why I'm featuring it today.

I'd been holding onto it for a while, just because I hadn't pulled the trigger yet on listening to the song.

I figured I'd get to it eventually.

Then I came across a tweet from The AV Club about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' video for their song Despair - it was the first video shot at the top of the Empire State Building.

That caught my attention.

OK. First, let's clear up a couple of things.

I'm pretty sure I've heard of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs before this. Why? I don't know. But enough so that I absolutely confuse them with the Ting Tings. (Why do I know the Ting Tings? I'm not sure if there's any other reason than the fact that they sing this birthday song from Yo! Gabba Gabba...but whenever my mind wonders who sings that song, it automatically answers the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I guess it's the repetition of the names.)

Secondly, I was shocked to read about this being the first music video filmed atop the Empire State Building. How is it that it happens with Despair and not something iconic like Billy Joel's New York State of Mind? My guess is there were some big hoops to go through - but then again, it's not like there weren't movies being filmed up there. (For what it's worth, I read that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are a New York band.)

Anyway, it surprised me to learn that. Here's The AV Club article about the video. The song's not bad. (Interestingly, the video is longer than the song I downloaded - it starts with about 2 minutes of acoustic singing, and then the 4:30 song as recorded.) But it's not like the song itself was the big draw this week - I liked the story more than anything else.

And the parts of the video that take place on the Empire State Building's observation deck are pretty cool - definitely worth whatever hoops the band had to jump through to get that video filmed there.

But nothing beats that last shot, which I assume is from a helicopter. That has to be one of the coolest music video shots I've ever seen. Here's the video: