If the United States of America were a high school campus, New York City would be the equivalent of the "cool guy" who rides his Vespa to school and works part-time at the local independently-owned record shop.

NYC is the kid who wears only the hippest clothes and always makes intelligent observations regarding post-modern art and its debt to Basquiat and Warhol's Factory.

NYC listens to Lou Reed, Count Basie and Keiji Haino within the span of an hour on a mix CD he made for a friend. NYC is in deep discussion with your girlfriend right now regarding the influence of Hegel on William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, and how that relates to her getting naked.

NYC is much cooler than you (or anyone else) can ever hope to be.

So why does the bastion of cool feel the need to constantly reassert its territory, specifically in the realm of modern music (e.g., rock & roll)? It can only be explained by the alpha-male mentality of domination maintenance.

Not content with giving birth to numerous modern composers, jazz, punk, No Wave, post-punk and hip-hop, New York struggles constantly to remain a fertile breeding ground for "new" music.

I say "new" and not simply new because the most recent installment of trend within pop-culture, the Garage Rock craze, is a far cry from being truly innovative or original. This lack of novelty and ingenuity does not hinder the movement from delivering interesting music that is still resourceful and clever, the case in point being the emergence of fresh talent such as the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

With nearly an entire album's worth of songs officially released amid two EP's, the self-titled EP and Machine, the band is proving themselves the match of any spoiled-brat Strokes in the world.

Equipped with a stripped down production, due more to money constraints than aesthete, that is reminiscent of the early Factory Records days of A Certain Ratio or Rough Trade-era The Fall, the YYYs embody the resurgence of punk mentality with a do-it-yourself mentality and a "hey, I could do that" sound.

The YYYs' EP plays like a mission statement of a group that needs, and has finally found, a voice. Regarding the track "Our Time," it has already been stated by numerous reviewers that if you are under the age of 25 and have not heard the song, you are missing out on the anthem of your generation.

As much as it pains me to side with this SPIN mentality, I am forced to agree. In fact, it pains my elitist soul to admit it, but these are all great songs despite corporate endorsement. The band might ally themselves with beer commercials and tobacco ads, but that doesn't matter when I can't even take a whiz without whistling the 1950s-inspired "doo-doo" chorus of "Art Star."

Also, coupled with these hook-laden tracks is my constant inability to correctly interpret song lyrics, thus reducing the rather naughty chorus from the track "Bang Bang Bang," which includes "as a fart song, you suck."

Fundamental auditory deficiencies aside, the most recent release by the band, the aforementioned Machine EP, maintains the debut effort without becoming the least bit stale. The three-song collection offers a spoken word by singer Karen O within the first track, "Machine," and a remix of the popular show-closer "Pin."

Branching out while still keeping with their angular and tinny sound, the EP shows promise for the full-length release which will hopefully arrive soon, cementing New York's continued reign in swank and "rawk."