You’re in a band. You’re young. You’re full of fire and fury and have just exploded into the public’s consciousness with a flurry of hit singles, a number one album and a prestigious music award that honours the most prodigious of talents. What next? Are you staring down the barrel of a short-lived gun; destined to fall from grace as quickly as you arrived, or will you weather the media storm and continue to produce inspired music well into the next decade?

Naturally most bands would sell their souls for the latter. So, if creative longevity is music’s Holy Grail then the basic question is how? Of course that’s as good as asking how long is the proverbial length of string, but maybe bands such as Yo La Tengo can give us some major clues.

The New Jersey trio have just released the gloriously titled I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass. Even with some serious research, if you tried to ascertain the total number of Yo La Tengo releases you’d invariably miss an obscure collaboration or indie-soundtrack somewhere along the line. Suffice to say Yo La Tengo have been producing music since around the early ‘80s and show no sign of diluting either output or quality.

I am not afraid of you… is a 77 minute technicoloured trip through pop’s time tunnel, with all the best bits from its past and present given a fresh lick of paint and proudly displayed within the band’s own diverse collection of melodies. Take ‘Watch out for me Rhonnie’; it’s a fuzzbox hit of Chuck Berry, sliced up by The Clash and given the Yo La Tengo treatment to make it 100% punk…but maybe with a sly tongue in its cheek. ‘Mr Tough’ sounds like a Northern Soul classic, placing James McNew’s falsetto asking: hey Mr Tough/ don’t you think we’ve suffered enough?/ Why don’t you meet me on the dance floor?/, hand in hand with a ridiculously catchy piano line and rude blasts of fat brass. It’s a lesson in how to use your idols as inspiration rather than ripping them off in the hope that non-one listening is old enough to remember them the first time round.

It’s not just the clever reinterpretation of great sounds that make this album (and indeed the band) so irresistible. Yo La Tengo have the balls to throw cohesion and continuity to the wind which makes for a veritable pick n’ mix of sound, pitch and tone that’s impossible to pigeon hole. Whilst Georgia Hubley’s Nico-esque monotone is weighted down with the drone of a keyboard on the ‘The Room Got Heavy’, it’s given a spring in its step by the sweet and playful hook of  ‘The Weakest Part’. Just as ‘Beanbag Chair’ is a short slice of sugary pop, its predecessor ‘Pass the Hatchet, I think I’m Goodkind’ is a 10 minute plus edgy blend of crisp off-centre drums, a bucket of guttural guitars and a circular bass-line that underpins Ira Kaplan’s vocal (which sounds as if it was recorded two doors down from wherever the rest of the band were at the time).

There are no rules here. No fixation with keeping it simple or complex; loud or quiet; short or long. The band have just cherry-picked stuff that they love and put it all together with an interminable ear for melody and a robust sense of humour.

So, is it possible to surmise that Yo La Tengo’s blueprint is one bands should follow for similar creative endurance? Unfortunately it’s not quite that straightforward. What Yo La Tengo are also blessed with is the unfair advantage of musical genius, which ensures they always end up on the right side of experimentation and homage. In the wrong hands ‘I am not afraid of you…’ could have easily ended up as a messy collection stuffed full of ill-advised pastiche.

Therefore there’s no easy answer as to how today’s favourite sons can extended their allocated 15 minutes of fame beyond fervent hype and flashbulbs, however, if they follow Yo La Tengo’s example: stick to doing what they love; make music that they want to hear and resist the lure of the commercial dollar, the future could be as bright as Yo La Tengo’s latest release.