\n<\/p>\n
On Sunday, the N.F.L., Roc Nation and Apple Music announced<\/a> that Usher<\/strong> will headline the 2024 Super Bowl halftime show. Only one reaction will suffice: \u201cYeah!\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Such was the refrain heard everywhere in 2004, when the singer\u2019s enthusiastically titled club banger \u201cYeah!\u201d topped the Billboard Hot 100 for a whopping 12 weeks (only to be dethroned by \u201cBurn,\u201d the next<\/em> single from his blockbuster album \u201cConfessions\u201d). Slick, strobe-lit and infectious, the smash featured a dexterous guest verse from Ludacris<\/strong> and production and assorted yeah<\/em>!s and OK<\/em>!s from Lil Jon<\/strong>. \u201cYeah!\u201d remains irresistible \u2014 and among the most successful homages to one of pop music\u2019s trustiest syllables.<\/p>\n The word \u201cyeah\u201d \u2014 or, even more emphatically, \u201cyeah!\u201d \u2014 is so entwined with the history of modern pop that when the critic Bob Stanley published a 2014 book<\/a> charting \u201cthe story of pop music from Bill Haley to Beyonc\u00e9,\u201d he titled it \u201cYeah! Yeah! Yeah!\u201d Stanley was probably referencing the specific yeah!s that punctuate the iconic chorus of the Beatles\u2019 \u201cShe Loves You,\u201d but the phrase also captures something quintessential about the exuberance of popular music.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah\u201d is slangier, more irreverent and often more musical than \u201cyes,\u201d and it bypasses that pesky hissing sound, for one thing. \u201cYeah\u201d is also younger than its stuffier counterpart \u201cyea\u201d (as in the opposite of \u201cnay\u201d); its earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1905 \u2014 not too long before the popularization of recorded music, incidentally. \u201cYeah\u201d is both question (\u201cyeah?\u201d) and answer (\u201cyeah!\u201d). \u201cYeah!\u201d can be used in a song as a vehicle for both percussion and melody, an easy call for audience participation or an ecstatic place holder for those moments when more complex language just won\u2019t suffice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Am I suggesting that this glorious word is worthy of its own playlist? Oh, yeah!<\/a><\/p>\n With Usher, Lil Jon and Ludacris as my inspiration (and with all due respect to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs<\/strong>), I have chosen to limit today\u2019s playlist to songs with \u201cyeah\u201d in the title, and specifically songs that revolve in some way around that particular lyric. This still left me with an eclectic collection to pull from, including songs from Daft Punk<\/strong>, Blackpink<\/strong>, LCD Soundsystem<\/strong> and the Pogues<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Does this playlist also include a certain zany theme song from a certain 1980s teen comedy about playing hooky and hanging out with Connor from \u201cSuccession\u201d? I think you know the word I\u2019d use to answer that question.<\/p>\n Listen along on Spotify while you read.<\/a><\/p>\n What van Gogh is to sunflowers, Lil Jon is to yeah!<\/em>s. I cannot imagine \u2014 and do not even want to imagine \u2014 this song if he had not produced it and blessed it with his gravelly, prodigious exclamations. (Listen on YouTube<\/a>)<\/p>\n Perhaps the greatest musical qualifier of \u201cyeah\u201d: \u201cOh.\u201d Gently ups the ante but doesn\u2019t take too much attention from our prized word. (That attention-seeking \u201cooooh\u201d is another story.) Daft Punk certainly knows how to spin that titular refrain into mind-numbing bliss on this hypnotic, bassy track from the duo\u2019s 1997 debut, \u201cHomework.\u201d (Listen on YouTube<\/a>)<\/p>\n Five<\/em> yeahs in a song title? These guys mean business. This 1989 single finds the English rockers the Pogues at their most jubilant, leading the way toward a fist-pumping, shout-along chorus. It also features a midsong saxophone solo, which is basically the nonverbal sonic equivalent of \u201cyeah!\u201d (Listen on YouTube<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The phrase \u201cbaby, yeaaaaahhhhh\u201d comes to hold an almost talismanic power in this Pavement B-side (a personal favorite), released only as a live cut on the deluxe reissue of the band\u2019s 1992 debut album, \u201cSlanted and Enchanted.\u201d (Listen on YouTube<\/a>)<\/p>\n A (very) darkly funny duet between the Magnetic Fields\u2019 Stephin Merritt and Claudia Gonson that relies upon the tension created by their contrasting vocal styles, \u201cYeah! Oh Yeah!\u201d appeared on the group\u2019s 1999 epic, \u201c69 Love Songs.\u201d (Listen on YouTube<\/a>)<\/p>\n \u201cYeah\u201d becomes a spiritual affirmation on this uplifting song from the gospel singer Yolanda Adams\u2019s 1999 album, \u201cMountain High \u2026 Valley Low.\u201d (Listen on YouTube<\/a>)<\/p>\n \u201cYeah\u201d also transcends language barriers, as the K-pop girl group Blackpink remind us on this track from the 2022 album \u201cBorn Pink.\u201d Most of the lyrics are sung in Korean, but the quartet deliver that catchy chorus in the universal language of \u201cyeah.\u201d (Listen on YouTube<\/a>)<\/p>\n An early exploration of pitch-shifted vocals, the Swiss electronic group Yello\u2019s absurdist \u201cOh Yeah\u201d was used heavily, and memorably, in the 1986 comedy \u201cFerris Bueller\u2019s Day Off.\u201d Yello\u2019s Boris Blank once recalled that the group\u2019s vocalist Dieter Meier initially came up with more lyrics, but Blank told him that would make the song \u201ctoo complicated.\u201d Said Blank, \u201cI had the idea of just this guy, a fat little monster sits there very relaxed and says, \u2018Oh yeah, oh yeah.\u2019\u201d Sure! (Listen on YouTube<\/a>)<\/p>\n Our grand finale is a nine-minute extravaganza of yeah (extravaganz-yeah?) from LCD Soundsystem. By the end of this mesmerizing 2004 single, on which James Murphy and company chant the titular word ad infinitum, \u201cyeah\u201d has transcended language, and maybe even music itself, to become a state of mind. (Listen on YouTube<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Yeah, yeah,<\/p>\n Lindsay<\/p>\n Listen on Spotify.<\/em><\/a> We update this playlist with each new newsletter.<\/p>\n \u201c9 Songs That Will Make You Say \u2018Yeah!\u2019\u201d track list<\/strong> \u201cBaby yeah: a seductive and sentimental call for human connection.\u201d<\/a> I thought I was alone in my obsession with that live recording of Pavement<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cBaby Yeah\u201d until I read this beautiful, heart-wrenching n+1 essay<\/a> by Anthony Veasna So<\/strong>.<\/p>\n And, on a much lighter note: Watch the \u201cCSI: Miami\u201d star David Caruso<\/strong>, compelled by the power of Roger Daltrey<\/strong>\u2019s \u201cYeah!\u201d to deliver an endless string of mic-dropping one-liners<\/a>. This video has 7.5 million views, and I believe that over the past decade or so I have been responsible for at least two million of them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n1. Usher featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris: \u201cYeah!\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
2. Daft Punk: \u201cOh Yeah\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
3. The Pogues: \u201cYeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
4. Pavement: \u201cBaby Yeah (Live)\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
5. The Magnetic Fields: \u201cYeah! Oh, Yeah!\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
6. Yolanda Adams: \u201cYeah\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
7. Blackpink: \u201cYeah Yeah Yeah\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
8. Yello: \u201cOh Yeah\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
9. LCD Soundsystem: \u201cYeah (Crass Version)\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
\nThe Amplifier Playlist<\/h2>\n
Track 1: Usher featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris, \u201cYeah!\u201d
Track 2: Daft Punk, \u201cOh Yeah\u201d
Track 3: The Pogues, \u201cYeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah\u201d
Track 4: Pavement, \u201cBaby Yeah (Live)\u201d
Track 5: The Magnetic Fields, \u201cYeah! Oh, Yeah!\u201d
Track 6: Yolanda Adams, \u201cYeah\u201d
Track 7: Blackpink, \u201cYeah Yeah Yeah\u201d
Track 8: Yello, \u201cOh Yeah\u201d
Track 9: LCD Soundsystem, \u201cYeah (Crass Version)\u201d<\/p>\n
\nBonus Tracks<\/h2>\n