I have come to the conclusion that Mr Brightside by The Killers might just be the best song of the past ten years

And yeah The Killers do strain for coherence - "Mr. Brightside" feels like it's trying to be a story, but it only becomes so by a certain sleight of hand (it seems to make sense until you try to follow the lyrics sequentially and logically). Again though, this isn't necessarily a bad thing!

I'm not that enamoured of the JLC remix, I reckon JLC is used as a prop by people who want to look like they hate pop while still being able to love "What You Waiting For", "Mr Brightside' or whatever. Not that I'm accusing anyone directly.

Anyway, I think the Killers have a sense of taut groove that a lot of their contemporaries lack, but it doesn't seem instinctive or indelible from their music, as a lot of their songs DON'T HAVE IT. "Somebody Told Me" does, perhaps not to the extent of say, Duran Duran, but there's elements of this "rock music you can dance to" (that said, that Soulwax album from last year really let me down on that unfulfilled promise, so maybe I'm overcompensating by liking The Killers). "Mr Brightside" sometimes strikes me as being better and sometimes as worse - maybe it ties up far too neatly at the end. Not sure.

(Oh, and "Sugar Cane" by the Space Monkeys was a great single, yes. "Fly" done CORRECTLY, indeed.)

haha but wait EMF's "Unbelievable" did better than "Fly" maybe. Perhaps it did.

I mean in 1998 I had no idea who Primal Scream were, but I knew that song was gonn be HUGE. And I SHOULD HAVE BEEN RIGHT GODDAMNIT

dude don't be defensive! I like your review a lot! I just don't get the dahnce/rock thing. I don't see how that would fix the band's "problem"

B-b-but the JLC mix is a better pop song than the original!

"What Ya Waitin' For" is a bit of a misnomer in this regard shorely - the reasons the original work and the reasons the remix work are entirely different. I love them both but I could totally understand loving one and hating the other.

"I just don't get the dahnce/rock thing. I don't see how that would fix the band's "problem""

It wouldn't, it would just neutralize it - no-one, not even rockists, ever expected songs by The Prodigy or Hardknox or whoever to "make sense"; the fact that they coasted along on good rockish dynamics was enough. This is true of a lot of rock too but then I wasn't trying to make a binary as such, just a point of comparison. There's a dance remix of "Somebody Told Me" which makes the point really aptly, the narrative progression of the tune loses all of the perceived awkwardness of the original because it's in a context where things like "narrative progression" are totally subordinated to groove and dynamic. This also means it loses some of it's OMGWTF quality as well - part of the enjoyment of "Somebody Told Me" is simply the fact that it doesn't gel in the places you expect it to.

That said, I reckon The Killers have the potential to be their best when that sense/dynamic tension is subsumed within a larger "pop" unity: where the song feels meaningful despite the fact that it may under closer inspection not be at all, where the overall surge and drama of the song feels unified a la "The Walk" or "Girls On Film". Where the original "Mr. Brightside" falls down for me a bit is that it's trying to get by on only one type of expansiveness, which is its emotive melodic efficiency (tense build up verse, big chorus 1, bigger chorus 2 etc.). The JLC Remix reincorporates the sonic expansiveness and openness and even slight gonzoness of "Somebody Told Me", but instead of just being there for its own sake as on STM, it's put to work in the service of the emotive structure which the original "Mr. Brightside" put in place.

I don't get this at all, but maybe its because I fell in love with the original long before I heard the remix (which I do enjoy)

I could see how people who were left unsatisfied by the original would be totally satisfied by the remix, though. I just felt no such unsatisfaction.

x-post yeah i think there's a dahnce vs. rock preference thing going on here. Both are fine examples of their respective trade.

(Of course, I like my pop songs to be taut and economical in scope, and broad in their sonic arrogance, which the original "Mr Brightside" does in spades. Oh and last time I went out, the JLC remix of Gwen cleared the floor. Nobody danced!)

I liked "Somebody Told Me" last summer, but it always seemed a bit too novelty, like a retread of Blur's "Girls and Boys" -- and not just in the gender juggling, but also in the vapid indie-gone-Euroclub spirit. "Mr. Brightside" is more affecting: it's sprightly but yearning, stately but smudged, with an almost baroque feel at times (okay, so they rip off "Ode to Joy" at the three-minute mark). It just works. I wish I could recommend the Jacques Lucont remix, considering how much I liked what he did with Gwen Stefani, but his ethereal rendering robs the song of its urgency -- in the original the fake-out non-rhyme of "sick" with "chest" coincides with a desperate tug forward, but in Lucont's hands it just floats there.

I was able to get synth-phobic indie rock college students to dance to this track! I love dancing to it, and I know lots of people who love it as well, people who i would consider "popists" in the sense that they like to listen to the radio. And I like the original too! w/ all respect edward o., i don't think people are "afraid" of short pop versions; for a long time I liked the original mr. brightside more than the remix.

The JLC remix is just like a New Order song; I'm honestly not sure which version I like better (of "mr brightside") although now I'm leaning towards the epic grandiosity of the remix; it just seems like a better fit for the bombastic (in a good way) emotive qualities of the original (which might be what tim's saying? I'm not sure).

I love it, and never liked the original, because I guess I am not emotionally moved in the slightest by the original, which just has that crappy 2 cent indie sardonicism thing going on, making it unclear whether you're supposed to hate the singer or like him.

The remix whitewashes this nicely.

(okay, i guess not.)

now "Somebody Told Me", there's a song whose lyrics all the catchiness in the world can't make up for.

This is the main problem with the remix, I agree, but you could argue that the remix isn't about being dynamic--to me it's the epic album-closer to the original's gate-crashing album-opener, and as such doesn't need to do anything except just lie there, being epic and whatnot.

i still haven't heard this remix, can someone gmail it to me?