For better and for The Worst, the Killers are a band intent on bleeding their strongest, most irresistible singles into albums that want desperately to be grand, All American masterpieces. Sometimes that means aping masters that have done it before (his name rhymes with Springsteen), and sometimes that means taking an orchestra to Ed Sullivan Theatre for a song that’s all about slick chrome American princes and blue jean serenades. This is a post about the latter option. Last night Brandon Flowers shot for the moon on Letterman with “A Dustland Fairytale,” and whatever you might think it lacks, ambition is not it. That grab is from the 10 seconds he decided he was conducting the orchestra. Afterward Dave is all about joy-riding around with the Killers in a van and teasing people, which sounds awfully familiar.
Day & Age is out.
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it’s funny how Dave loves the Killers and seemed to not really like animal collective. he must be a huge fan of the UK.
coming from the uk..seconded
I’d rather listen to this BS where they atleast feign interest in music, then the worthless shithole of Animal Collective any day. Talk about a band that only is popular because it’s hip. fucking worthless. I liked Pet Sounds better, and it came out 40 years ago.
Forgot to mention, as in Pet Sounds was better the first time. Now kids shit their pants because one band takes that sound and rips it off.
holy god stereogum wants you to know that they’re only posting this because it’s popular, and not because they’re uncool. seriously. they’re not uncool. seriously.
seriously. if this site wants everyone to know how cool or hip they are, then stop posting shit about the killers and acting ashamed at the same time, because you don’t end up sounding cool or hip, you end up sounding like confused dipshits
Conducting, not composing
The Stereogum RSS feed still not working….
i gained a little respect for the killers at coachella this year. they were more humble than expected (actually i wasn’t expecting a tad bit of humility out of the dudes).
and i met jared leto at the festival where he confirmed that him, kanye and flowers will have their colab out in september. kind of funny.
I got this album without hearing any of the songs, hated it for a few months, but now there are only a few songs on it i can’t enjoy. This isn’t one of them. Love this song, and sure doesn’t get any more all American than the Killers.
I love Flowers’ voice but I’m really not digging this anthem. It’s so epic and arena-y, and not even the orchestra, it’s about devils and showdowns, and even though the Killers have always been somewhat over-the-top-strange, they’ve got to tone it down. It sounds like Pat Benatar wrote the lyrics.
ALSO Flowers needs a stylist. He’s adorable, why is he always in that awful coat? Also, someone should teach him how to look less high strung. He looks like he is going to go into some sort of steroid-fueled-rage when he’s on stage. Look at the veins in his forehead.
Solid performance. Their drummer still looks like your older brother/cousin/brother-in-law who you don’t invite to parties, but who shows up anyway to hit on your female friends.
that was pretty damn good…
My Morning Jacket played with an orchestra (The Boston Pops) on Letterman, it was better
thought it was a legit performance.
WOW GREAT
There is something awfully appealing to me about a drummer who is so excited he is incapable of playing his drums softly.
This was a good performance.
I saw this performance and while I like the band I didn’t understand what they were trying to accomplish musically. This song does not go with an orchestra which was obvious as half way in the song just became noise. They reached beyond their grasp on this one.
sucks the dude on the left forgot his shirt and had to borrow a woman’s blazer
To: Igloo McCoy
First of all, Brandon isn’t wearing “that awful coat”. Watch a little closer, no feathers. And second of all, this song is not about devils and showdowns. It’s the story of his parents and their relationship over the last 48 years. From the moment they first met in 1961 to his mothers battle with brain cancer recently. Brandon sang his heart out in last nights performance because this song is so personal to him. Educate yourself before you speak!!
I say this as an admirer of the band — there’s no need to start devolving into a flame war in defense of the Killers, they do just fine w/o us starting online tiffs. That being said, I really mean this as no offense, but to the person who said the orchestra doesn’t fit, I’m fairly certain there are string arrangements on the album version. Regardless, I freakin’ love this song and this performance, and given the knowledge that this song is about Brandon’s mom and his mother is ill, I just choke up when I hear those last 4 lines. He can be a pretty ridiculous lyricist sometimes, but those 4 lines are just too real and too sweet to be anything but moving.
Why isn’t the guitarist wearing a shirt? This was slighty overblown/over-the-top/overdramatic.
Good call. One thing too rarely commented upon is that The Killers are really ugly dudes.
Who the FUCK cares if the guitarist was wearing a shirt or not??? This was an AMAZING performance!!! All you Killers haters have your heads up your ass.
they still can’t win with half these kids even after their better then decent album and one of their best performances.
Yes that is an awful coat! These guys just try too hard and wind up looking silly. Kinda like Coldplay. They’re ok but nothing special.
this sounds gorgeous! and i went to college with the Harp player!
Day & Age has some catchy as shit song son it, this isn’t one of them, I hate this song…. ‘moon river what’d you do to me?” .. really?
but the performance wasn’t bad.
Not that it will vastly change your opinion, but I think the line is “‘Moon River’ (as in the song), what you do to me,” which may make no difference to you, but as someone who saw her parents dance to the song in the family room as a kid, I think it’s incredibly sweet and resonates with me personally. But even though I love the song and thinks it’s some of his strongest lyrics yet, Flowers has serious problems with mixing up his narrative perspectives and pronouns throughout songs — he switches from “me” to “she” to “you” so often in a song, it makes the stories a little hard to follow. My high school English teachers would not approve… Love his adorable face all the same.
Not that it will vastly change your opinion, but I think the line is “‘Moon River’ (as in the song), what you do to me,” which may make no difference to you, but as someone who saw her parents dance to the song in the family room as a kid, I think it’s incredibly sweet and resonates with me personally. But even though I love the song and thinks it’s some of his strongest lyrics yet, Flowers has serious problems with mixing up his narrative perspectives and pronouns throughout songs — he switches from “me” to “she” to “you” so often in a song, it makes the stories a little hard to follow. My high school English teachers would not approve… Love his adorable face all the same.
Song lyrics often sound ridiculous, especially when divorced from the music. It seems as though often, when people speak of good writing in music, they’re referring to self-important and indulgent bands that are often inaccessible. And despite the ‘great’ compositional abilities of their writers, they are often are unlistenable, flat, or totally don’t resonate in any meaningful way.
I’m not a devoted Killers fan, but I think they sounded pretty damn good here! Flowers certainly looked as though he was singing his heart out. I?d rather watch a band that was delivering a performance rather than condescending to letting me watch them play halfheartedly. And sometimes when you’re really into the music, your body moves unconsciously. So many times, I see people dancing at clubs as if they were having seizures. So let him flail his arms around as if he were conducting the orchestra. How many times have you listened to music and done something as ridiculous as playing the air guitar? Same Same
The cover of day & age looks kinda like Fifty Foot Hose’s Cauldron, if only it sounded that good
this performance was the bees knees. just terrific!
-Brains.
How can people still hate the Killers? They try so hard to be the great American rock band, embracing all the terrible cliches, that they’ve swung back around from terribly annoying to awesomely bad parody. I love the whole Americana shtick because it’s so cynical yet people bought right into it. They’ll never be the American U2, somehow Kings of Leon seem to have drunkenly stumbled into that ridiculous distinction. But the Killers are trashy fun.
Brandon needs to regrow the stache, though. I’m almost forced to take him seriously without it.
The killers are complete horse shit and this confirms it.
They might have ambitions to one day to take over Coldplay but they’re even too pretentious to do that. Unbelievable
Is it still cool to dislike popular things? Okay, just checking. I thought this was a great performance by a great band.
I absolutely love The Killers and this performance was awesome!!! That song is great and so is brandon! He’s so cute and fun to see live.(i have seen him live)
That was a great performance, epic! I just don’t get why people waste their time writing bad comments here.
if this band never made it then he would STILL be performing this song…but at a backpacker hostel open mic…with flip flops and an upside down visor…and that guitarist would be in some shit cover band…with his shirt on…
When you really get down to it, there is not as much difference between this and Arcade Fire as you’d like to think. If you like it, great and if you don’t, great.
Ilive in Spain in Europe and I have to tell those american people who do not like one of the best bands they have ever had that we love them, it’s a pitty you don’t apreciate the good things you have or could it be envy?. Anyway, everytime they come to europe they have a great wellcome may be because we are talented to apreciate the good music, the good bands and the poetry of the lyrics, by the way the song “DUSTLAND FAIRY TALE ” IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITES AND WITH THE ORCHESTRA IS SIMPLY GREAT.