Clap Your Hands Say
2005
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
About This Album
You've undoubtedly heard of these guys by now. They're all over the Net, and if you don't have a computer, someone who does told you about them. Their story is as much a testament to the power of the grassroots-indie-blog machine as it is a sign of crumbling major-label authority. Self-released, self-promoted, and self-distributed (right down to licking the stamps), Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's self-titled debut is well on its way to selling a respectable 40,000 copies as this review goes to press -- and they don't even have a record contract. These Brooklyn-based boys like it that way, too. If there were ever a band who could do a cover of Sinatra's "My Way," and mean it, it's these guys. Theirs is a template for success that every budding Shins or Modest Mouse could do well to follow: work hard, practice hard, play well, and write good songs -- the rest will take care of itself. And it did. Heavy hype on the Internet had the guys sending copies of this album to the four corners, just as they were settling into being a band, and when the labels came knocking, these guys just said, "Thank you, we're fine." They are fine. Fine and fun. Their sound is evocative of nearly every indie band you've ever heard of -- enough to flick a switch somewhere in your head, but not enough to call them guilty of derivation.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 10)

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