Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Stayin' Alive

Three years after they nearly imploded, Yeah Yeah Yeahs brave self-doubt, isolation, and possible decapitation at the hands of Mexican druglords to reinvent themselves and create a dance-rock gem.
Photographs by Takay

On a wintry evening in late November, Karen O celebrated her 30th birthday by throwing herself a party in the city she had fled. Raised in the New Jersey suburbs, Karen spent her formative years in New York City, crafting her identity through cherished postadolescent rituals: going to college, dancing at clubs, drinking in bars, and starting bands with people she'd meet at clubs and bars.

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