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

This song is fab.

it has to be somewhere under ten or above triple plat for me to fuck with.

This isn't the best anything, but it isn't the worst either. It is avarage.

Ten years is pushing it, tho, it wasn't even in the top 20 songs of last year.

Great.

So, yes, Duran Duran..

except the lead singer is better looking.

They're very slick. They look nice. They're pointless.

"I proudly endorse this nu-wave band."

Oh, I mean "Smile like you mean it" silly...

HS

Morning - gets me outta bed.
Evening - great to switch on.
Night club - brings the floor alive.

(This is how many people already feel)

-- the other kate (ffs!) (kate@eyecandyforthebrokenhearted.com), February 25th, 2005.

long time no see? I'm here all the time!

plus i think i may potentially know you from some time back. Did you ever post on SSQ?

I GOT SOUL, BUT I'M NOT A SOLDIER!

(wrong song)

i wish the killers didn't make a second album.

I think it will probably be remembered as one of the better mainstream songs of this era.

I like "When We Were Young." It almost made it onto my top 10 list last year.

when you* were young

"I got soul but I'm not a soldier" made me cringe so hard that I nearly crashed my car when I first heard it

absolutely fuckin shit song. and i don't normally get that animated about sonfs i don't like

STILL AWESOME

this vs. "All My Friends"

as i was reading this thread i was thinking "what happened to tape store?" and apparently the answer is "only posts to mr brightside thread"

both songs you mention are awesome tho i don't get the connection besides both being good

"all my friends" is so boring. do not get the hype/hoopla at all.

"mr brighside" isn't as good as "read my mind," "when you were young," or "somebody told me"

ppl kept writing about "read my mind" as sam's town's brightside and when i heard it i was pretty underwhelmed. it doesn't have nearly the chorus of their other songs you mentioned

Conversation I had..

Friend, singing: I got SOUL, but I'm not a SOLDIER

Me: You know what's funny? That's the only part of that song I remember AT ALL

Friend: haha, me too

Me: And it had a video where they dressed as cowboys and threw boomerangs at hotties

Friend: You have summarized that video well

I rather like their cover of "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town"

Wow, this record is 2 years old already :(

It's still awful.

three years moar liek pash, and yup still awful.

It's the only song of theirs I unreservedly dig.

I never understood the love for Mr. Brightside. It's okay, but sounds so clumsy and hamfisted to me. By contrast, there are a few total gems on that debut disc: Jenny Was A Friend, Smile Like You Mean It, and On Top being the best of them (with Somebody Told Me and Mr. B being okay, and the rest being awful).

"Smile Like You Mean It" I think is pretty good. For a while when it was current I actually thought it was a different band. Everything else I've heard by them has been rotten, as in actively bad, not mediocre.

I rather like their cover of "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town"

-- Bimble, Saturday, January 19, 2008 9:46 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Fuck that. THE version of Ruby is "Oh, Ruby, nechtěj mi lásku brát" by Pavel Bobek.

http://www.pavelbobek.cz/albums/008_Antologie/Ruby.mp3

Fades out before the chorus :((

Seems a lot of people agree withe op, https://www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/the-killers-mr-brightside-claims-record-breaking-260th-week-exactly-five-years-on-the-official-singles-chart-top-100__32800/

Wow, that is quite something. I actually heard "Somebody Told Me" about an hour ago on LA radio, hardly ever on the radio these days.

The Brits love it. Good drinking song, I guess.

It's so ubiquitous that I often forget it's not by a British band

The Brits love it. Good drinking song, I guess.

― HuskerDoolittle

Yes, quite satisfying to holler along to while pissed, filling in any gaps in the lyrics with "da-da-dah!".

*huge bongrip*

What if...

You replaced the cocaine 16th hi-hat note 00s drum style with...

an original semi-improvised drumming from Megadeth's (since 2016) drummer (who seems like a nice Belgian dude who'd never heard the song before):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbUYVcaF_l0

Happy 20th anniversary. It will never leave. It is eternal. It is "Louie Louie." It is "Sweet Caroline."

https://i.ibb.co/9c7sM5P/IMG-4336.jpg

big michigan football fan here, and playing "mr. brightside" between the 3rd and 4th quarters has become a tradition. it might have replaced otis redding's "i can turn you loose" (famously used in the blues brothers), though they might still play that one in addition to mr. brightside, i haven't been to a game since the tradition started

Went to a Twins game this summer and they played it, huge pop from the crowd

Twenty years of madness. Gift link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/arts/music/mr-brightside-killers.html?unlocked_article_code=1.D00.pIAN.UFJKJ9aB0xMF&smid=url-share

beautiful thread arc

I was struck on relisten how it reminds me of born sloppy and also sex by the 1975… real bridge to the 21st century type shit

When Rock N Roll Pt 2 finally got struck from sports stadium rotations, it left a bit of a void, so just in case any Gary Glitter-esque scandals come to light from the Killers crowd, I nominate Buzzcocks' Thunder of Hearts as a drop-in replacement.

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

Similar themes and chorus, and less smarmy and preening, though I guess smarmy and preening is exactly the attitude you'd want when your team scores a goal -- on the other hand I'd argue "Okay, right, you win, but always remember / Don't say you've not heard, when you die, you're dead forever" is an even better one for when the opposing team is ahead.

When Rock N Roll Pt 2 finally got struck from sports stadium rotations

i've heard it in u.s. stadiums/arenas well past the allegations, though i think hardly anyone here even knows who gary glitter is, it's just the "hey!" song

just had a look at the top youtube upload for "The Hey Song" and 95% of comments are wistful nostalgic memories.

a few comments are about "heard he did some bad things but he made some great music so it's not all bad!"

Cancel culture is out of control!

saw one that was like "rock stars have all done terrible things! if you don't listen to anyone who's been cancelled then you can't listen to anyone! and anyway there are plenty that have done worse!"

"I listen to both kinds of music! Gary glitter *and* l0stpr0phets!"

The Killers released “Mr. Brightside” 20 years ago and hardly anybody cared.

sometimes you read a story and it feels like the first line invents a version of reality in order to facilitate the thesis, and this is one of those times...

my recollection is that this song was basically inescapable for at least a few months ... am i wrong?

I guess it was, but several months after release ...

The premise of this song becoming a "Don't Stop Believin'" or "Sweet Caroline" for a younger generation is interesting enough ... you really don't need that lead to make it work.

i remember hearing "somebody told me" first and then "mr. brightside" coming along in its wake. didn't realize that "brightside" was actually released first.

but yeah, as the article points out, it became a massive hot 100 hit and was an alt rock radio hit for some time beforehand

Of course it was huge in 2005. I karaoked it then and my version went top ten in 14 countries

I also heard Somebody Told Me first. It was definitely an omnipresent single for a while before I first heard Mr. Brightside.