Fever to Tell by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Fever to Tell, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' debut album, landed on Interscope in April 2003, but the trio made sure it was their record before any major got near it: they paid for the sessions out of their own pockets to keep control, and only then signed with the label to get it into shops. Dave Sitek co-produced at Headgear Studio in New York City, the first of a long run of jobs he'd do for them.

The garage rock racket of their 2001 debut EP is still the foundation, but it's been whittled into something jagged and arty. Nick Zinner's guitar slashes, buzzes and somehow fills the whole room, Brian Chase drums like he's chasing a runaway train, and Karen O, singer and sometime pianist, yelps, purrs and shrieks through lyrics drawn from her own run-ins with intimacy and sex. "Date With the Night" and "Y-Control" are all raw nerve endings; then "Maps" slows the pulse to an aching crawl, and it's the one rock radio still refuses to let go of.

It picked up a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album and a Shortlist Music Prize nod, reached number 55 on the Billboard 200, broke into the top 20 in the UK, Ireland and Scotland, and went gold on both sides of the Atlantic on its way past a million copies worldwide. Best-of-the-decade lists keep finding room for it, and plenty of people rate it the finest thing the band ever did.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.