Eric misheard one of their lyrics as “Charlie Rose isn’t gonna stop us.”

I’ve been reluctant to write about Yeasayer for awhile. Namely because I’ve been thinking about them a lot, and their success is something happening simultaneously close to me, but without my having any stake in their story. It’s been about three weeks since I went to their CD release party. Three weeks since I listened to the album and went through the motions of hating it so much, then checking my stupid insecurities and bitterest jealousies to realize it’s pretty fucking amazing. Three weeks of the crazy reviews appearing in newspapers and blogs. Various radio programs. Interviews. Tours.

I hate it when my friends are successful. Imagine how it feels when a group of acquaintances I have a vague one-sided competition with is crazy successful.

I think it was this time last year when I first saw Yeasayer. I’ve seen a lot of friends’ bands, and even at this first show at Cake Shop I was fairly impressed with their music. Though they definitely weren’t the same band that they are now, there was something unique and kind of startling about hearing them. The lyrics to the song “Sumertime” then were stolen directly from a Three Degrees song, and after the show, we talked about that. In my subsequent encounters with the members of Yeasayer I was identified as Eric’s girlfriend, the one who knew the Three Degrees song.

The next time I saw them was at Glasslands. They didn’t end up going on until after 2 am, and until then I was on my own, wandering around Glasslands, fuming about how that venue appears to be the draining dump of all the pretension in Williamsburg, and soothing my sorrows in whiskey and Coke. I got so drunk that I loudly berated them their entire set, embarrassing Eric and everyone around me. “Blah blah blah synthesizer shit. Octopad crap. Blah blah blah.” They had changed.

Honestly, their live performance has always seemed fairly contrived. The last time I saw them, Chris Keating knocked over a mic stand in a full-on fit of rock star posturing and called the entire front row ugly. They used to show video projections at their shows that looked like the worst of Stan Brakhage. And really? Video projection? It seems like a pretty straightforward way to say “Hey look! I’m an artist!” But the thing is, under all that artifice is something incredibly substantive.

How can one identify music that is truly great? What makes certain albums stand out like this one does? Like Animal Collective’s “Strawberry Jam” does? I think what it is is something so expressly coming from today. Yeasayer’s music, their lyrics, maybe even their stage posturing and pretension (and I say this reluctantly because I really want that shit to stop. Seriously. I’ve seen a hundred shitty bands perform this way and really, it doesn’t convince anyone but 18 year old Parsons students) is communicating something that is so inherently rooted in the present. And when I think back to other great records– ones that I remember being released– I realize that they do the same. Why does Nirvana’s “In Utero” still sound so good? Because in being so rooted in the time it was made, it transcends the time it was made. By invoking the present, it communicates something beyond that, illustrating the significance of time, the subtle shifts of tastes and art, in a way that’s universal.

So, yeah. The Yeasayer album’s pretty good.

What’s weird being able to witness the band’s success by proxy is that I can see all the trappings of success at work. The gross hangers-on. The promises made to friends against the will of managers and record lables. It’s all happening now. And I have no part of it, but I can’t wait to see what happens.