TV on the Radio's Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes Turns 20
Staring at the sun and reflecting on the grand debut of Brooklyn's art-rock pioneers
Perhaps the first thing that drew me to TV on the Radio’s proper debut studio album Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes was the album art. Before I ever read a single review or knew anything about the group, I was struck by the frazzled light beams that were strewn across the cover. It was a transfixing image and pulled me in. As soon as I hit play on the opening track, I felt like the album cover was a reference and visual interpretation of the sounds I heard. The blaring saxophone rhythm that opens “The Wrong Way” felt like the musical representation of those blurred electrical charges and it seemed as if the music was truly leaping off the cover.
In 2004, indie rock music wasn’t new to me, but the sounds of TV on the Radio immediately stuck out as something I’d never really heard before. Punk, screamo, and hardcore were well within my listening habits, but this was different (obviously) and opened my ears to something totally new and interesting, something that was challenging in a new and creative way. It’s worth calling out that Touch & Go was the label behind this release, one known for signing intense noise bands, so the experimental aspects were certainly in good company. Their blend of free-jazz and avant-garde music was a whole new world and while I was knee-deep into the sounds of The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and other garage-rock bands from Manhattan, hearing of a band from Brooklyn really broke the mold and expanded my world in a way that few other records had done before or have since.
Released twenty years ago today, this album came at a time when artists and musicians had embraced life across the East River and, to me, it became one of the earliest indicators of what the new art scene in New York would become over the next two decades. In time, TV on the Radio would become one of Williamsburg’s most iconic and impactful bands right alongside LCD Soundsystem, but while their peers would shoot to stratospheric heights and become festival headliners around the world, TV on the Radio maintained a bit of an edge and even with more massive tunes that would follow, it was Desperate Youth that set the tone for who they’d be as a band in the years to follow.
At the time, this seemed like some of the most progressive music of the moment, the inclusion of instruments outside of guitars, bass, and drums was an exciting discovery. Paired with the raw energy and fuzzed-out production, it was an ear-opening listen from the very beginning. It also must be said that to learn of a band that was composed mostly of Black members breaking through in a genre largely dominated by white dudes in skinny jeans was worth immediate attention. The power of seeing Tunde and Kyp front this group was commanding and without question a major breakthrough that would inspire kids across the country. The amplification of Black voices and artistic reach is alone worth celebrating and the impact on the community can’t be ignored and only adds to the legendary status of the album. Bartees Strange has talked about the influence on him of seeing a Black man play indie rock music on TV and how encouraging it was for him to know that this world existed and how his possibilities were now limitless.
Joining between the release of Young Liars and this album, the addition of Kyp Malone rounded out the band’s sound and his epic falsetto backing Tunde Adebimpe’s lead gave the band a new texture to add to the mix of their buzzing tunes. With the two hitting exquisite harmonies on top of the group’s experimental nature, it transported listeners to a place many had never ventured before, mostly because TV on the Radio was blazing a trail all their own, making music that defied genres and bucked expectations.
“Ambulance” had hallmarks of doo-wop, “Poppy” with it’s artful guitar, the fluttering bop of “Wear You Out,” and the previously mentioned free-jazz skronk of “The Wrong Way” on which Tunde even contemplates teaching people a lil boogaloo, all add to the mystery and purpose of the group and while it stands as an amazing record in its own right, it also, now, serves as a blueprint of the sonics the group would later master on their next two albums, setting up one of the best three album runs of the millennium. It’s an album of discovery, both for the listener and for the band who were in the process of getting to know themselves and the directions they wanted to explore in the future.
There are elements of this record that still feel rough and you can understand how the band was still figuring things out here, but that’s something that has revealed itself more in time and wasn’t so apparent when it was first released. As a fresh listener, I was blown away by the band’s raw, primordial power and just how well they incorporated elements into the mix that felt a bit out of place. By the time they’d sign to Interscope for the release of their opus Return to Cookie Mountain, a lot of their sound had been ironed out, leading to a sleeker and more streamlined approach, one that still fully captured the essence of the band, but with Desperate Youth, they still felt like the approachable group who hadn’t quite hit stardom. Things were messy, dirty, and embodied a punk ethos, something that would never truly disappear, but would never be as urgent as on their debut.
The standout to me, and possibly me alone, was “Bomb Yourself,” a song with a loud, sharp drum beat that sounded direct and prominent in the mix while striking guitar tones would bubble up in the undercurrent, giving Tunde space to let his howl run free. Never quite settling on a groove, the song warps itself through space, meandering at its own pace before slowly fading out into the ether.
It was hard to fathom, at the time, how the band could possibly follow-up something that sounded so fresh and unique, but the surprises in store would be rewarding beyond belief and help transform the band into one of the most important recording acts of the aughts. There was nothing that sounded like TV on the Radio before and even as the band continued into the next decade, they never sounded quite like this ever again. Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes remains a singular recording from a band on the brink of greatness, their ideas percolating in real-time, gestating towards greatness. This was just the beginning and it was a remarkable start to a band that never settled and continued to inspire creativity with each new release.