Anticipate The Killers - Day & Age

Anyone looking forward to this?

"Human" is one of my singles of the year, so...yeah, maybe.

I just listened to it, and not much stood out, although I was only half-paying attention.

Close your eyes, clear your heart, cut the cord...

I'm not sure if his lyrics going from bad to completely ridiculous is a problem or an improvement, but the tune doesn't really work for me either.

ridiculous >>> bad

I've been hearing "Human" on the radio a lot; I mistook it for new U2 at first. I think I like it!

I heard one of the other songs - Spaceman(?) and it was good, although the lyrics were EVEN WORSE. Which I didn't think was possible. I'm not one for greatly caring about lyrics TBH but these were truly dreadful.

when Flowers stretches his vowels, he goes all Bono on us.

I think if you put The Killers into the same "great tunes, mediocre lyrics" category as New Order, it's a lot easier to appreciate them.

dear god i love this band

haha cutty otm

i love how you guys don't want to talk about this. or them.

but this album is fantastic.

They are this generation's Mission UK.

Hm.

I'M EXCITED. Is it out already?

4 days to go.

It's on Luisterpaal:
http://3voor12.vpro.nl/luisterpaal/

Flowers recently said he's upset that fans have been making fun of the lyrics to "Human," the first single from the soon-to-be-released Day & Age. People apparently think a line in which Flowers sings, "Are we human, or are we dancer?" sounds more like, "Are we human, or are we denser?"

While it's true that The Killers' lyrics have never made sense ("Somebody Told Me," anyone?), Flowers says he thinks his fans should learn their literature (or at least their gonzo journalism), because the line comes from a Hunter S. Thompson quote.

"That sucks a bit," Flowers said, according to the World Entertainment News Network. "I don't like, 'Are we denser?' as an alternative. I really care what people think, but people don't seem to understand 'Human.'

"They think it's nonsense. But I was aching over those lyrics for a very long time to get them right."

this fuckin' guy

"Denser" at least makes grammatical sense.

I want someone to make another edit of that song that eliminates the second part altogether, making the chorus just "are we human?" and then a dramatic pause.

"aching over those lyrics"

where is tim ellison

i feel the amount of hate for this band is in no way proportional to any valid criticisms these haters may have.

why so much hate for lil brandon flowers?

just because he's handsomer than you...

he's hot

"this is your life"!!

that song is apeshit

in the best way possible

Cutty I love this band too.

Although even I get a bit o_O if i focus on the lyrics in "Human" too carefully.

or indeed half-hearing them in passing

anyway calling brandon flowers "hot" is even more wrong than praising his band's blustery, tedious music. his head looks like a pasty potato but more to the point i've only ever seen him a) wearing eyeliner or b) with spectacularly awful facial hair. both of these stylistic decisions are what you'd call warning signs.

i <3 the rock band song... when i was young? i can make it sound all kevin shieldsy during the solos.

yeah this is awesome

anyway calling brandon flowers "hot" is even more wrong than praising his band's blustery, tedious music.

wow wrong and wrong and wrong and wrong and wrong and wrong

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Brandon-Flowers-The-Killers.jpg

does that really deserve a "wow" tho dude just sayin

i thought it was obvious that i was trying to troll lex

i do think he is just "wrong" though

There's some dire shit here: "Neon Tiger" should sound as good as the title; "A Dustland Fairytale" is Want Two-era Rufus Wainwright; and "The World We Live In" never recovers after Flowers sings, "I heard a rumor that you quit this day and age."

But...wow, it takes nerve to get away with a "Magnificent Seven" cop as shameless as "Joy Ride." "I Can't Stay" reminds you that calypso presets on Casio keyboards can promise fun if you remember to write a tune.

someone upload the clip of bf performing "human" on SNL

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e376/xosmiles69/brandon.jpg

ok granted he looks decent in a whatever kind of way in that picture BUT:

http://microsites.nme.com/syndication/images/BrandonFlowers1_01.jpg

"bf" = "boyfriend"?

greasy and sad:

http://spd.fotologs.net/photo/29/25/126/_brandon_flowers/1170286062_f.jpg

tranny:

http://i.ivillage.com/E/Tracker/E_BrandonFlowersTana_250.jpg

haha the Era of Bad Facial Hair is admittedly the low point in his career but still

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:hato5mJMhRULFM:http://bp2.blogger.com/_FBtEkRS2nYg/RfxGCqkufUI/AAAAAAAAAEI/BNoSUiwJoOw/s400/brandon%2Bflowers.jpg

in the one tape store posted, u can't see his face. this helps!

haha that white suit one is just... there are bad days

I cannot possible imagine a more boring polarising band. "Hey, people either love us or hate us, we must be doing something right" = rong, it's quite possible you're shit and your fans are morons.

Obviously the two big singles off the first album are awesome but from then on, who cares?

(Of course I will be downloading the album and was very excited to learn that JLC was producing it, but his work in turning the first single into U2 does not exactly inspire confidence).

i'm not a moron, so obviously they are good.

SCIENCE.

"When You Were Gone," "Bones," "All These Things That I've Done" >>> "Somebody Told Me"

Also most of Hot Fuss and "Tranquilizer"

Of their originals I like "When You Were Young" most but overall the TWD remix of "Mr. Brightside" rules over everything with an iron fist of bittersweet regretful longing.

http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/famecrawler/2007/07/16-22/brandonred2_copy.jpg

I don't think he looks like he's flirting with cross-dressing; it's more like on 'Make Me A Supermodel' et. al. when they interview the models right before a photo shoot and their make-up seems all odd in ordinary lighting.

Explaining my Mission UK comparison up above, given Alfred's reaction and a challenge on my reaction made elsewhere, I whipped up this:

---

A lot of it has to do with Brandon Flowers, unsurprisingly. The talk over on ILM on the new album made note of some sublimely awful lyrics (along with a discussion about 'ridiculous' vs. 'bad'), then Alfred added "when Flowers stretches his vowels, he goes all Bono on us," and that's what prompted my 'hey wait a minute!' moment. Wayne Hussey fits the bill on all that front perfectly, an ad-hoc Bono for when the real one is hibernating, and lyrics/singing style makes both Hussey and Flowers excruciating and, somehow, perversely compelling, often in a "Good god, he really DID write and sing that, didn't he?" sense. Musically, less immediate but there's a similar 'I want to be new wave and I have the background' -- Brandon Flowers started with his demi-electroclash band Blush Response, Hussey used to be in Dead or Alive! -- 'but I also really really love heartland Americana, I really do!' Authenticity is big with both of them, in a dress-up sense.

---

This said arguably this might best apply to Sam's Town most of all but what I've heard of Day & Age still continues it.

Hmm, I had almost forgotten about their Joy Division cover, and my memory was the happier for the forgetting.

Ha, Tim's model comparison and my 'dress-up sense' thought might dovetail a bit! (The larger question of 'authenticity' I am invoking is not meant to be a sneer at Flowers for being fake or not, that's a dead horse well beaten on any number of fronts well before the Killers came around -- but in his case (and in Hussey's but forget that for now) there's a willful sense of aiming for those heights of rockstardom, to really really BE that big because that's the only way it will work -- which is why Flowers' complaint about fans not getting the lyrics to "Human" is both scruffily amusing and pathetic.)

Yeah I know what you're getting at Ned - it's less about authenticity and more about the cognitive dissonance that the band invites by piling on so many signifiers that point in opposite directions.

Like, Brandon linking "Human" to literature kinda makes me like it less. I preferred the thought that he just got up there and ad libbed it the first time, and stuck with the results.

Right, and I don't write said dissonance off as being something inescapable on his part because the band are huge now instead of being huge in, say, 1971 or 1988 or whatever -- enough decades have passed that the signifiers, as you say, are all just *there* to be used/abused/referred to as desired, or simply ignored.

Though perhaps perversely the mention of Hunter S. Thompson just draws the focus back on to Flowers and the band being a product of Las Vegas. I see plans within plans, etc.

Anyway, maybe more tomorrow as I need to get some sleep.

I cannot possible imagine a more boring polarising band. "Hey, people either love us or hate us, we must be doing something right" = rong, it's quite possible you're shit and your fans are morons.

I'm far from a Killers apologist, but you can seriously fuck right off with this shit.

My review, for what it's worth:

http://www.uncut.co.uk/music/the_killers/reviews/12473

Poor Brandon Flowers, condemned to be a queer boy stuck in a straight one's body. That's why his referents don't cohere meaningfully.

this fucken guy

Does their music still sound utterly shit?

i don't see how that can ever be the criticism. hate the vocals and the lyrics, fine, but this music has always been engaging to me.

maybe my ears are broken again.

Does their music still sound utterly shit?

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Friday, 21 November 2008 13:04 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i will give you a clue: "yes"

no.

Compressed to fuck, lacking all dynamics and definition, causes me a headache.

Does their music production still sound utterly shit?

i'm brandon flowers ain't all up in the compressors

Production IS music.

(as are vocals)

Exactly.

Production IS music.

Wrong - you're mixing up production with process.

"Process IS music"?

It wasn't me who used the word "production" first.

no, you only used words that constitute parts of music recording and production. i'm sure flowers doesn't make "compress to fuck" notations when he's writing his music.

Sure does sound like a lyric he might write, though.

Constitute parts and affect the whole.

maybe you should take it up with jacques lu cont

Nick is to compression as Dan is to vocals - they know a hell of a lot more about their pet issue than me but I rarely find their actual pronouncements on these points in relation to any particular piece of music to be terribly persuasive in the "oh my god now that you've pointed that out I can never enjoy this again!" sense.

Like, sometimes you can be right about the part but not the whole.

You know those new wave entries in the Spin Alternative Guide that rate the albums 9-5-3-2-2?

As I never heard How To Be A...Zillionaire or Vive Le Rock, I kind of appreciate this album for giving what I presume is a similar experience.

'Are we humans....' is possibly the most irritating song of this decade.It is shit.

I really do like that other hit of theirs though - the one that doesn't look abit like Jesu....'.Good tune

"Human" as this album's "Be Near Me" is fine with me. How To Be A...Zillionaire! is the better album, though.

For "Be Near Me" to be its "Human" it would have to be. Srsly, dude. Just find a club remix of "Forever Young." Don't encourage Brandon.

I don't have particularly strong feelings about this album, but I got seriously annoyed when DeRogatis and Kot on the radio criticized the band's use of saxophone and steel drums on this album. Those are points in its favor, IMO.

I really love "Spaceman" in its pure, idiotic glory.

The oh-so-80s elements (which I'd suspect Stuart Price was pushing) are really the only part of the album of any interest. Brandon's used up all his crazy juice on Sam's Town and the band's nothing.

but there's plenty of Lakini's juice in "The Magnificent Seven" rip.

Yeah, okay. "Human" is really good.

Obviously the two big singles off the first album are awesome but from then on, who cares?

― Chopper Aristotle (Matt DC), Thursday, November 20, 2008 7:22 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

They've had a long string of really catchy songs with dumb lyrics.

They come off as really pompous ('deserts of australia') here, but they do a really good cover of Romeo & Juliet.

"Spaceman" is fucking brilliance and if you don't hear that, you're a pompous cunt.

"Human" is not anywhere near as good, through.