(t5!) Heroes Of The Zeroes Singles: #19: Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Maps (2004)

As far as trysts between mainstream and indie moments went in the zeroes, there were few more disconcerting than the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ performance of “Maps” at the ’04 MTV Movie Awards. In the middle of awkward skits and awkward award presentation ad-libs, on the same bill with the Beastie Boys and D12, Karen O enters, with her short hair and her shorter skirt, and the rest of the band playing this bewitching, distortion-satiated ballad against an unearthly backdrop of huge flowers, until Karen gets emphatically stifled with rose petals when the song finished. I don’t remember how host Lindsay Lohan handled the moment afterwards exactly, but I’m sure it went over with more tangible awkwardness

But if I remember correctly, “Maps” always felt like a fish out of water in popular culture. In fact, if you want to justify that some songs are just too brilliant for the public to ignore, you’re not going to come up with a better example than “Maps”. Everything about it was weird: the song itself, the captivating video, the band, the lead singer, the band’s name. Nothing about it would really point to it being a breakout hit, aside from the fact that it was very awesome. Also, it happened to surface in a year where modern rock crowd seemed to favor to give airspace to more eccentric artists like Modest Mouse, Franz Ferdinand, and The Killers, for whatever reason. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs certainly should be thankful that “Maps”, as good a song as it is and as commercially viable as it was, was made and released in the right place and at the right time.

And Karen O, this brilliant oddity, was an unquestionably charismatic front woman. But she wasn’t charismatic in a way I thought she’d be from all the media hype the band received, which led me to believe that she’d either be an over-the-counter, overly aggressive punk rock chick, a confrontational riot grrl, or a rock diva, in the same line as Gwen Stefani or Courtney Love. The truth is Karen O was the female rock icon who fused attitude, fashion, toughness, and vulnerability, like the female and indie rock version of Tupac.

Karen O, naturally, is not the sole item of praise, for it would be unjust to refuse guitarist Nick Zimmer his due that is as much his as it is Miss O’s. The thoroughly distinctive guitar is the constant throughout the single, from the initial everlastingly resonating one-note riff on the song’s intro, to the spectral, glistening riff that swells the chorus, to the ear-splitting crunch that trounces the bridge, and back to the one note again until everything fades. The evolution of the instrument in “Maps” is extremely beautiful, and joined with the ceaselessly punching drums, it creates the musical cascade that contrasts Karen’s irresistibly amorous vocals and her vulnerable and intimate performance.

Although as I say that about Karen O’s vocals, I’ll confess that from the lyrics alone, I wouldn’t have a single clue what this song is about. The verses are shadowy, and the title is cryptic to say the least. Honestly, the song’s emotional appeal comes down to one line from the chorus: “Wait/they don’t love you like I love you.” A lot of it is in the delivery. The fact that in the wake of the verses, she sings “wait” with the right amount of inflection and hesitancy that it feels like there’s an uncertainty about her wish. And “they don’t love you like I love you” is a wicked line, surfacing out of nowhere to astonish listeners with its unabashed quality—especially when she soars to a higher octave from her hushed exhale to a downright belt as the chorus proceeds. The vagueness of the rest of the song just serves to make that one line pop, as if it’s a colorful object in a black and white artwork.

Of course, “Maps” has an intriguing back story, involving Karen O’s real-life boyfriend Angus Andrew—lead singer of Liars, who is committed to go on tour or accept a job offer or whatever—making it a classic “Please don’t leave me” ballad. The raw emotion for Karen in the song was self-evident in the captivating video, where she shed legitimate tears due to Andrew’s failure to show up to the video shoot. It’s not like you needed to be aware of the storyline to be moved by the video, but it does help to give the song context. Especially since even as I type this, I have no idea why this song is called “Maps”, which adds to the single’s mystique as an unforgettably private and touching intermission in a largely uproarious, unpersonal decade.