well, i am right this minute listening to sam’s town by the killers for the 3rd time and though i wish i could say i didn’t like it, i must admit that i am quite enjoying it. i say this despite (or maybe because of) the fact that rolling stone and pitchfork! at the disco scoffed at it for attempting to channel bruce springsteen’s brand of anthem americana rock but come on - who honestly hoped for this to be anything but more of the same dancy, punky, glam n roll kind of thing that their first album hot fuss was? and anyway, we should be all about encouraging attempts at innovation with bands we like. let the crazy rockstar kids experiment and try new stuff - why should we care as long as it is as good or better than their previous work, right?
and i honestly think this is better, taken apart from the plethora of annoyingly cliche lyrics. to me it sounds as if the music is much more influenced by meatloaf than springsteen, although i may be the only person on this planet who means that as a compliment. yeah, it’s a bit overwrought, a little wanna-be-jaded, a tad overly sincere perhaps…they are definitely playing with the epic rock genre here, but the record has that same nouveau-romantic twist that made you love or hate the killers in the first place. stream “when you were young,” the first single from sam’s town, and see what i mean about the meatloaf thing…can’t wait to hear them cover “paradise by the dashboard light.”Â
there are catchier, less ”80’s-anthem” songs on here as well, like the 5th track, called “for reasons unknown.” it starts slow and ballad-y but has those little hooks in the chorus that make you want to listen to it again as soon as it finishes. it’s like the spoiled bastard child of morrissey and freddy mercury, in a good way. and my current favourite, ”read my mind,” manages to make synthesizers sound angsty and that’s the kind of thing that makes joie happy.
i personally cannot wait for the revisionist history that will surely come about in a year or two when this album has been startingly successful and suddenly all the elitist music publications “remember” that they did indeed love it when it first came out. in the meantime, i will be listening to it and enjoying myself and perhaps dancing a bit, all the while laughing on the inside. and when it officially comes out next week, you should do the same.
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bahahahah god i’m listening to this the SECOND i get home from work…meatloaf! i have been listening to meatloaf’s new single (god, have you heard it??? i should post it) and it’s totally hilarious. and, to top it off, it’s a CELINE DION COVER. we could make fun of this for days….
anyway, back to the point, i am guilty of dancing to the killers’ music on numerous occasions…
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Comment by Sam E. — September 28, 2006 @ 11:57 pm
I’ll freely admit to owning the first Killers album and dancing to it too. They have me hooked with the name of this one too
And you’re right. The single sounds like Meat Loaf.