Music

"Despair" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs [YouTube Official Video]

Donovan Farley

by Donovan Farley

Published June 24, 2013

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and singer Karen O. have really done something special in this official music video for "Depair". Clocking in at nearly 6-and-a-half minutes, it's an epic that builds from a bare vocal to a galloping rocker and then finishes with a glorious upbeat soundscape that's matched by an incredible view of the Empire State Building as the band rocks out. It is, in fact, the only music video ever shot at the top of the iconic Empire State Building.

In the video, it may take some patience to get through the slow and cringe-worthy vocal passages of the first half of the song. That patience is rewarded when the band really gets going. By the end, it's uplifting to see Karen O. dancing and jumping around in a rhinestone yellow jumpsuit. She had this to say:

It’s definitely not just another cool day in the life of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs... It was definitely an iconic moment. It’s hard to do something like that and not to feel like it’s symbolic – it’s like the American dream for us, singing your song on top of the Empire State Building, feeling like: man, where were we 10 years ago, when we were sitting around in some punk rock dive bar, thinking about what to name our band, and New York City, and now here we are at the top. It really felt dreamlike.

For more information about the very cool and unique video, check out this article in the New York Times.

The video was produced in conjunction with Noisey / Vice.

Production credits:

Director: Patrick Daughters
Executive Producers: Eddy Moretti, Trevor Silmser
Producer: Bettina Schneider
Company: The Directors Bureau and Noisey
Exec Producer: Sue Yeon Ahn
DP: Larkin Seiple
Production Designer: Jeff Everett
Editor: Stephen Berger
Colorist: James Tillett
VFX Artist: Cynthia Lee
Post Producer: Alannah Currie

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs
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Alt Rock Garage Rock Pop Rock
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