Under The Earth

Album: Mosquito (2013)
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Songfacts®:

  • This moody track finds Karen O singing about a relationship turning sour. Speaking in an interview with Pitchfork, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs vocalist revealed how the dark times members of the group were going through personally led the music to become an escape, as well as returning to their lo-fi roots. "Emotionally, it's been a rollercoaster," she explained. "Being back in New York is intense for me. I've gone through an identity crisis. It's been very emotionally intense for Nick (Zinner, guitar), too. He was going through a breakup while we were making the album. It was just all kind of down."
  • Mosquito finds the Yeah Yeah Yeahs returning to their lo-fi roots: "There were dark times. So whenever we'd go into our studio space, we would just try and play music that was as uplifting and cheerful," Karen O told Pitchfork. "The music is more of a prescription for what we were feeling. It was like a pep talk. And it's extremely lo-fi. We had a shi--y drum machine, a shi--y sampled keyboard, tons of delay on the vocals. There's a real tone, character, and style to it. And it's probably some of the most tongue-in-cheek stuff that we've done in a while."

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