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

Jimmy Eat World - "Get It Faster"
Rage Against The Machine - "Guerilla Radio"
The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
The Ramones - I Wanna Be Sedated
Queens Of The Stone Age - Little Sister

Idlewild - I Understand It
The Who - Happy Jack
Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
Magic Numbers - Forever Lost
Sons And Daughters - Dance Me In

KROQ mostly sux0rs monkey balls, but "Indie 103.1" here has pushed them to improve a bit. I got lucky on that pull though - coulda come up Papa Roach, Linkin Park, and that contemptible MCR/The Used cover of "Under Pressure." Which last track provides the double-whammy of performing two bands' worth of bukkake job all over one of the all-time great singles and making me loathe myself for scorning it since it's for such a good cause and all (yes, part of that good cause is reminding the world that MCR and The Used still exist, but still...)

There is a handy "last 5 tracks played" widget on the KROQ site though, so fun for the whole family.

But why are we having this conversation, anyway? "Mr. Brightside" isn't even the best song on Hot Fuss. (As all right-thinking people agree, that honor goes to the exuberantly shameless Cure knockoff "Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine.")

but what I was referring to

3. "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine" > "Mr. Brightside" (or "Somebody Told Me" or "Smile Like You Mean It")

"Unlike Starsailor, The Killers are perfect candidates for a Lu Cont makeover, perhaps because they sound like they should be making dance music instead of rock anyway, as the great-hooks-in-search-of-a-point conundrum of "Somebody Told Me" aptly demonstrates."

What was the "point" of the hook to "Double Shot of My Baby's Love?"

There you go. The point to the hook in "Mr. Brightside" is that he is Mr. Brightside.

"Somebody Told Me" is banal and pish compared to "Mr Whiteside".

But, you know, they're a rock band! Think of how IMMACULATE it is compared to, say, the Pop Group.

"Mr. Brightside" and "Smile Like You Mean It" probably work better as songs qua songs, but I probably like them (in their original form anyways) a little bit less (the aristocatty vocals in the verses of "Smile Like You Mean It" are pretty ace though, I wonder if Stereophonics cross-bred them with Interpol's vocals to get that illustrious deep romanticism on the verses to "Dakota").

The JLC remix of "Mr. Brightside" has the best of both worlds, retaining the song's conceptual unity while adding and outperforming the melodic and sonic bombast of "Somebody Told Me". Where it sails miles above "Somebody Told Me" is that the combination of the two here allows for a really wholehearted sense of emotional immersion, whereas the open and unleavened silliness of "Somebody Told Me" creates a slight distancing effect ("Somebody Told Me" is the "Robot Rock" to the "Mr. Brightside" remix's "Digital Love").

"I'm not sure I get this rock-not-dance/dance-not-rock dichotomy."

Rock music can be dance music obv, but the concept of "rock" and all that it entails tends to enforce a level of coherence that The Killers really have to strain for and probably don't need (the fact that "Mr. Brightside" and "Smile Like You Mean It" hang together represents a triumph of pathos over logic). So when I say that The Killers might be better off as a dance act, it's insofar as they would not have to meet these expectations.

The one band that *no one* mentions as being an obvious precedent for all this stuff, and who I had at times a sneaking affection for, is the Space Monkeys. They struggled with similar issues, though in a cruder, blockier manner compared to The Killers' relative eyeliner suaveness.