the killers - are they killer?

Only in the hipster blogosphere.

Then they sounded like Shed 7. Not killer.

Although it is quite amusing to imagine a group of lads in Las Vegas being all "God, it sucks round here. It's just so, like, plastic. It's just for the tourists. I bet in YORK there are REAL people who have the coolest time. God, man, I wish we lived in York."

The Killers / Longwave / Stellastarr* = all US bands that plunder 80s epic Brit/ Irish big rock sound.

Cactus World News in the 80s were the masters of the big epic rock sound - these new bands fall way short of the blueprint.

U2
The Psychedelic Furs

They're American?!

i'm surprised they've managed to draw such polarising opinions from people. judging by their inoffensive style of music, i thought they would've been met largely with indifference or faint praise at best.

stephin meritt wrote an article for the new york times featuring them called "music that's oh so stupid yet oh so smart" and i think that description is in the ballpark.

The 1984 Midge Ure era (i.e. "One Small Day," etc.), even more sadly.

Oh, the album is well fine. Both my kids now go round singing "I've got a soul but I'm not a soldier" now. Which can only be a good thing.

The inclusion of the gospel choir in that song has to be the single most annoying thing I've heard all year.

No, wait, "Indie Rock & Roll" is.

The Killers bigger than Marion?
BRMC 'bigger' than JMC? (for a while)

Both bands are not undeserving, but are still 'lite' versions of the originals (although I don't know 'marion' enough to say they weren't 'lite')

They even beat early Marion stuff in my book, though I'm glad I'm not the only one who spotted the connection.

Global nuwave poprock, local media habits, my mom, me, & u

Hovering around 20 in the UK album charts is a drab pop-punky nu-wave band from Las Vegas named the Killers. . Apparently I need to crawl out from beneath the rock I live under, bcz I know this only bcz my mom sent me (as in: an envelope with a stamp on it, how quaint) (also, I was hoping it was a check) a clipping from the Des Moines Register’s style section from early July about them.

I grew up with the guitar player, Dave, in a small Iowa town. I wasn’t friends with him, but I knew him. He was quiet, and big into Smashing Pumpkins. You’d never know it from his current band but he could TOTALLY SHRED, too, such a shame. I went off to college and the last I heard he was jobbing in a Christian grunge band out of Newton. And now there he is with Strokes hair, a sportcoat, and tennis bracelets. They grow up so fast!

The online article has of course been ecto-trapped in the Register’s pay vaults, which is too bad, cos besides the obligatory local-boy-make-good angle I’d like for you all to see the hint of the contempt that the Des Moines media holds for Pella, the town I’m from. It’s not wholly accurate to describe Pella as an insular, conservative, religious community of Dutch Protestants, cos Dave and I are from there and are not that, but it’s fair enough. Pella is tacky and touristy as well (Register "critic" Kyle Munson sagely noted “omg, so is Vegas, weird!”), known state-wide for riding a theme-park version of its 19th cent. Dutch immigrant history to the bank every year. So poor nascent rockstar Dave had to answer eye-rollers like whether he’s ever worn wooden shoes and what his favorite pastries are. Well DUH of course he did; in grade school marching in the Tulip Time parades is MANDATORY. And Dave diplomatically mentions something from both the town’s bakeries, same as everyone else would. Don’t you media people know anything? More to the point, do you think that by broadcasting your dislike for this odd, churchy, nasty little burg you’ll somehow make living in fucking Des Moines any better? Get over it! (cue you: “yes geoff get over it”)

Now, if any other publication on earth had thought to ask a musician on his/her preferences in wooden footwear or pastry it would be a sorta-funny dadaist jab (and megawierd coincidence in Dave’s case, since he’d actually have an answer). But for the Register it’s just pro-forma and sad. See, I could win a Pulitzer or go to jail for planting an unsolicited kiss on Barack Obama (both are in the works, mind), and the Register would be on the phone asking a “Pella boy” about the klompen and the pofertjes.

Anyway I listened to a few clips on the Killers’ website and they suck. Good luck Dave!

Marion being an influence on anybody hurts my brain. And I don't even mind Marion much.

now that's funny.

having always found morrissey and merritt highly overrated i am pleased to hear of their being implicated in this horrible, horrible alterna-fiasco. it's hard for me to believe some of the praise isn't people joking around. this is probably the worst shit i have ever heard in my life and i'm not kidding.
the way he says "potential" or whatever in that video is full-on fucking hilarious.

Oftentimes, I'm willing to forgive otherwise dreadful ticks in songs that make me tap my foot without thinking about it. Let go of your anger!

as another Dutch Protestant from the Southwest i'm afraid it simply will not be possible in this case. this is a transparent masquerade of a band, and though seeded in probably legitimate desperation, i will not personally be able get past the basic (and super-unsuccessful) ludicrousness of the approach.
i bet i like tons of stuff it will otherwise get lumped in with, but that always happens.
hey i also did happen to mention it's very, very funny... and meant it.

Yes, isn't that peculiar? I've got several examples of this sort of thing happening to myself, but can't explain why.

i have to write about these guys this weekend. they're okay. they get played a lot at work. they stike me as the manifestation of a cardinal music industry rule.

the first the Killers NME front cover

I can see this being Mr. Flowers's final form.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlucGdeT37E

Every time I hear the song I think of Robbie Nevile, even if I don't hear it.

or Aaron Neville

idk what "c'est la vie" is reminiscent of but i love it

I guess it sounds a little bit like TH's "Don't Worry About the Government", something like that? Kind of like I referenced in the Beatles thread re: ELO, there's so much there that eventually you can hear almost anything you want to hear. I mean, when your latest album features explicit references to both Springsteen and Can, the sky's the limit, you know?

https://www.instagram.com/p/CP9NS6EB3r2/

lol they've managed to get springsteen for their new single

very excited, imploding the mirage only got better and better for me so i hope this album will be just as good

oh it's just a reworked version of day & age track "a dustland fairytale" with springsteen? why that of all things now i wanna hear the new album lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3BZ8hnLyRc

here's "dustland" with springsteen

album is planned for august, no idea if that'll be on it

album pressure machine out august 13, same producers as imploding the mirage so i'm very excited

!!!!

this is good news.

wow

it feels like exploding the mirage just came out
but time moves v slowly for me lol

nice. i'm digging how some artists have been dropping albums more quickly as of late.

this one is a quarantine album they made because they had ideas leftover after finishing imploding the mirage & they couldn't tour. they've apparently started work on another one already too

praise be

Gonna be wild when all these acts tour for the first time in years behind three albums.

So I idly saw they had a presale going for next summer's stop here, I checked and literal back of the house final row tickets were perfectly acceptably cheap so I guess I'm going to see these characters, much to my surprise. I just want to see what an actual 21st century rock band that made an arena-level career out of it that actually lasted said whole century so far is all about live, I guess.

lol ned i thought you couldnt stand them
softening over the years i guess

Perhaps! It was never a deep loathing, more like a ‘wait what?’ Brandon’s messianism is actually enjoyably ridiculous now.

I feel the same

i don't think anyone would have expected that they'd have the most longevity out of their whole wave of bands, or that they'd end up putting out their best album 16 years after their debut

It feels like it took several years for people (ok, me) to recognize the band's (Brandon's?) ridiculousness as a feature and not a bug. He seems to have figured it out a lot better than Bono ever did, balancing camp and pretentious grandiosity in a more convincing manner.

Helping Flowers' case immensely is that he doesn't read, or at least doesn't drop book titles in interviews

Ignorance is bliss.

i have inadvertently read some of the lyrics for the new album, and hoo boy

think it's gonna work tho

all their lyrics are hoo boy

lol seriously, if the lyrics were a barrier to entry i would have given up at the debut

My wife and I are rewatching The OC and just saw the episode where they played The Bait Shop (their very own Peach Pit!), Flowers looked so young!

from said episode:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DMC1KbvWkAAKnhl.jpg

lol he looks 12 years old!

flowers has an unparalleled ability to completely sell utter nonsense so i'm not worried

yes this is 100% otm

Helping Flowers' case immensely is that he doesn't read, or at least doesn't drop book titles in interviews

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, July 23, 2021 6:04 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

“When I was writing these songs, I was thinking of things like Sherwood Anderson’s book Winesburg, Ohio or that book Pastures of Heaven [by John Steinbeck],” Flowers says, “where’s it’s all these short stories that take place in this one setting. For some reason, I had the audacity to try it myself. Once I realized they were going to take place here and they were going to be true stories, everything just really fell in our laps.”

weirdly a slightly early version of this has leaked - it's missing the spoken intros they mentioned in interviews were added at the last minute.

as they've suggested from all the interviews they've gone in a more folk-rock direction for this one but the arrangements are just as lush and lovely as the last album. apparently the follow-up that's already in the works is shaping up to be a more direct continuation of imploding the mirage though, so i'm looking forward to that too.

“When I was writing these songs, I was thinking of things like Sherwood Anderson’s book Winesburg, Ohio or that book Pastures of Heaven [by John Steinbeck],” Flowers says, “where’s it’s all these short stories that take place in this one setting. For some reason, I had the audacity to try it myself. Once I realized they were going to take place here and they were going to be true stories, everything just really fell in our laps.”

― STOCK FIST-PUMPER BRAD (BradNelson), Tuesday, August 3, 2021

dear god in heaven Flower Boy's thinking of narrative.

Just wait for his first full novel, And The Dude Saw The Sky

Enjoy some rock

Stream @TheKillers' new album 'Pressure Machine' featuring a song with @Phoebe_Bridgers https://t.co/LiQqxQW22Q pic.twitter.com/PGOY1YxJqJ

— Stereogum (@stereogum) August 13, 2021

i don't think flowers' new found focus on narrative really does anything at all for this album but it's solidly their second best behind the last, just for consistency & the strength of the arrangements

Wow at this album. This is basically the electric "Nebraska" Springsteen never brought to fruition, updated for the times. Drugs, withering small town alienation, losing your religion, etc. I have no idea who listens to the Killers, but I wonder what they'll make of this.

Me, I find it astounding and galvanizing that a band I'd been indifferent to for most of their career should release an album I've really liked two years in a row.

(Not saying this is nearly as good as "Nebraska," I should stress - that's a unique masterpiece of a one-off - but this album is some heavy stuff, at least to my ears, however on the nose so much of it is.)

it really seems that having producers who can help them to really flesh out their arrangements has made a huge difference

this album is awesome, i love "cody" so much

astonished that flowers' attempts to get into granular storytelling do not weigh this album down one bit (not that he's ditched the broad, bombastic thing, those eagles still have "glory-painted wings")

also think this is better than imploding the mirage :O

I'm not ready to deliver a judgment, but there are moments like "Terrible Thing" where the Nebraska tropes -- the echo, perfectly arranged harmonica -- try to deepen narratives that don't exist except as Springsteeisms.

Every predictable image is so damn perfectly paced.

Holy shit, yeah, this is fantastic. Even better than I'd hoped and definitely even better than Mirage. So many great moments - really digging "Cody", "In the Car Outside" and "Runaway Horses" most on first blush, but it's all pretty great.

the obvious springsteen songs i can easily lose as they do nothing more than springsteen did, the upbeat Triffids/Big Country stuff is great.

Triffids/Big Country stuff is great.

Which songs were these?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWdeRkr6dLs

decent single

Enjoying this but boy, that's a blatant Erasure riff they drop in

gosh yeah.
given the bronski beat riff that brandon used for his solo debut,
and now this,
i think it's clear that he/the band just need to go the whole hog and make an 80s synth album to get it out of their system.