Band: The Killers (S+)

The Killers are my favorite band, and they likely will never stop being my favorite band. It’s possible I’ll hate every future song they ever release; it’s possible I find another band that just blows them out of the water; it’s possible they’ll turn out to be actual, literal murderers. There will still be a part of my heart that loves them as they were when I loved them, and that version of The Killers, that lives isolated from whatever reality goes on without them, will be my favorite band. Most likely. Maybe my tastes will change, but they hold such a deeply rooted place in my heart that I don’t think they can ever truly be displaced.

My family is a Killers family, through and through. We have always been bound closer together by their music, especially as all of the kids have grown older and started moving out- it’s become one of the single largest commonalities we share, one of the single largest things we can all use to connect with each other, we can use to get along. The Killers have been my family’s band, my band, my entire life: when we missed school to drive down to Las Vegas on a Wednesday when I was 13, it was for a Killer’s concert; when we talk about getting the family back together now that everyone is moved away, it’s through a Killer’s concert; when we’re in the car together and we want to listen to music that we can all agree on, we listen to The Killers. I met Brandon Flowers on a flight home from Utah once- I saw him in the airport, then I saw him in my plane, then I saw him in my baggage claim, so I ran to grab my family picking me up so we could grab a selfie. That was our Christmas card that year, and I think we only ever had one other Christmas card that came even close to being as good. Nostalgia and its history are powerful allies, and when The Killers are battling it out over the title of “Pod’s Music Champion”, nostalgia and its history will be The Killers’ allies. Big time.

All this to say, I readily admit that there is not an insignificant amount of bias in that decision. For me, The Killers are more than their music, and to such a degree that it’s impossible to detangle the music from my history with the music. Music is like that. Of course, that’s not to say that The Killers aren’t deserving of their spot, because they are. It just means that I’m an irrational human trying to be rational and I can recognize where my attempts look more like blind flailing than planned, coordinated flailing. Anyway, enough preface.

The Killers are ranked as my S+ band, my altogether favorite, and bias or no bias I think this is a defensible decision. If I had to pick a single artist that was most foundational to my musical taste, it would be The Killers. If I had to pick a second, it would be Brandon Flowers. If I had to pick a third, it would be The Killers again. It’s hard for me to articulate a lot of the reasons I like their music so much, because so often when I enjoy other songs or artists it’s because they sounds like The Killers and I love that sound. That being said, there are a couple of things for which I am cognizant of my love. I love the band’s overall path, how they made the transition from living the lives of rockstars to rockstars living lives. I love Brandon Flowers, his earnestness and enthusiasm and energy and sincerity, his lyrics and the stories he likes to tell. I love the sound of Flowers’ voice, love the intention in each of their seven (or eight, or nine, depending on how you count) albums, love the range of sounds they’ve tried over almost 20 years.

I love their music. Battle Born was the first album I ever owned. It’s almost universally agreed to be their weakest album, but I loved that sucker like nobody’s business. I carried its disc around with me whenever I’d go on car trips; if there was ever a chance to offer it as a substitute for a silent car it was oh so offered. Battle Born is my least favorite Killers album. There are two main reasons for this, both very simple. First: I got older and my taste changed, nostalgia not making up the difference. Second: the other seven albums are all absolutely fantastic. How could Battle Born not be my least favorite when they have so many phenomenal albums with so many phenomenal songs? The Killers made “Mr. Brightside” and “All These Things I’ve Done” in Hot Fuss, they made “Read My Mind” in Sam’s Town, they made “I Can’t Stay” and “The Man” and “C’est La Vie” and “Quiet Town”. Battle Born not being a my favorite isn’t because The Killers are bad, it’s because they’re great.

the seven core albums

From 2004 to 2021, The Killers released seven studio albums. They’re still making music, so this intro is gonna look stupid within the year. I’ll have to decide whether I want to make new blog posts and link them as addendums or just edit old ones. I’ll prolly edit the old ones, but either way that’s a problem for future me. Anyway, individual album reviews ahead.

Many believe Hot Fuss, The Killers’ debut album, is the best they ever made. I have my own favorite, but it’s not hard to see why Hot Fuss is held in such high esteem. It is exemplary. I’ve heard people say they’ve never heard of The Killers, never heard any of their music, and while that’s not as funny as when people say the same of Weezer, it’s still worth a smug chuckle.

Hot Fuss is home to “Mr. Brightside”, The Killers’ most famous song by leaps and bounds. It’s catchy and easy to sing (hard to mess up one note); it’s not my favorite song but I do like it. “All These Things That I’ve Done” never fails to get a crowd singing along. It carries so much of the raw Killers spirit in it. It’s a song for community and strength and regrets that push you forward, an anthem for endurance through the struggle. “Believe Me Natalie” and “Smile Like You Mean It” and “Change Your Mind”- every song is a banger. There are only two tracks in this album that I don’t positively adore: “Andy, You’re a Star” and “Everything Will Be Alright”. Eight of the songs are all time favorites: all but the two prior, “Mr. Brightside”, and “On Top”. “Andy You’re a Star”, for me, needs the rest of the album to prime it for listening, to give me the context I need to love it. “Everything Will Be Alright” is fine, definitely the black sheep of Hot Fuss. “Mr. Brightside” is excellent, just a little bit lacking in substance for how much it’s played. “On Top” is a fantastic song, it’s just outclassed by the others because they’re all phenomenal songs.

“Somebody Told Me” is, I think, the song that best represents the album as a whole. My personal favorite moment is the entrance into the second verse, something about the way Flowers sings “ready let’s roll onto something new”… I dunno, it’s so smooth, the sounds flow so well it almost feels like they’re not there- but they are there, so they exist in this moment of frozen time where they are the only things that do exist. It’s the perfect microcosm for describing the album as a whole. Each song moves so smoothly, creating this momentum that boosts you into the next song, that reenergizes you to keep listening . At the same time, each song is so incredibly charismatic- while a song is playing, it’s the only song in the album.

There are those who claim that Hot Fuss is, and always will be, the definitive Killers album, and I can’t say I entirely disagree. It’s spectacular, and it’s their origin. But The Killers have grown, are still growing. They’re trying new things, they’re writing new music, and it’s really, really good. There are things that they do better now than they did then. I haven’t yet loved a recent Killers album like I’ve loved Hot Fuss, but I think I will. I suspect that, if a new album I can truly claim is better isn’t produced soon (and I think one probably will be), there are still decent odds that my tastes will change and I’ll end up liking Imploding the Mirage more anyway. For now, though, Hot Fuss is the one to beat**. It more than earned it.

**Well, Hot Fuss and Sam’s Town. Sam’s Town is my favorite Killers album*. It’s hard to place an absolute favorite album of all albums (not just Killers) because of genres and mood variance and junk… this isn’t it, but it’s a contender.

There isn’t a song on Sam’s Town I don’t like. Maybe “Uncle Jonny”, but even that I recognize as a good song, it just makes me more sad than is worth listening to most of the time, and honestly that’s probably indicative of a better song. “Enterlude” and “Exitlude” (no, not a mistake, they really are called that, no I don’t know why) are effectively the same song, and while not a favorite (in a strict sense of the word) I like them a lot, and I think they function really well within the album. “My List” is also an excellent song, fits really well in the album, listens well outside of it.

Those four tracks I like but don’t love- every other song on this album is a true favorite, easily within my top 50 songs at least. “Sam’s Town” and “This River is Wild” are both excellent examples of The Killers storytelling prowess. “For Reasons Unknown” is a Killers classic with a million reasons to be loved. I adore the way Flowers drawls out the beginning of the second verse: “it was an open chaaaaair, we sat down innnnnn, the open chaaaaair”. It’s a good reminder that The Killers are great songwriters, and spectacular performers. “Bling (Confession of a King)” is impossible for me not to love with its perfect execution of one of my favorite musical tropes. It starts with a dramatic, over-the-top verse and chorus and ends on a catchy, bright bridge. I love me a good bridge, I love love love when songs are split into two distinct parts, “Bling” just nails it. “Bones” has one of the strongest openings to a song I have ever heard. Talk about charisma- “Bones”‘ “Come With Me” demands you participate in the song, demands your full attention. “Read My Mind” is home to the line: “I pull up to the front of your driveway / With magic soaking my spine”. Flowers was once asked by a fan what that line means. His response was, in essence, ‘if you don’t know, I’m not sure why you’re my fan’.

My feelings about this album are similar: if you don’t like Sam’s Town, I’m not sure how our tastes could overlap other than by coincidence or in a totally different genre- but even then. It really is so hard for me to articulate why I like it so much, it’s so fundamental for me. I can say I like a painting because it uses a lot of neat shades of purple and I love purple. It’s hard to say why I like purple. It’s a good color? I dunno, some color theory jazz? Even then, colors are a base enough thing that it really is just preference, some sort of subconscious bias. Maybe I just really really liked Harold and the Purple Crayon when I was little? Sam’s Town is… well, it’s not so fundamental as base colors, but it’s about as fundamental as I’m currently equipped to understand with the vocabulary I have available. If I had to guess, to say something, I would say that I appreciate its attention to both craft and performance. Rather, I appreciate its dedication and attention to craft and its understanding and acknowledgement that performance is part of the craft. When a song is made, more so now than ever, it’s produced with intent and particularity. Everything is made toward some desired effect, and Sam’s Town understands that really well, I think. It’s a work of art, and easily one of my favorite pieces of music ever.

For starters, Day & Age has one of my favorite album covers ever. It’s beautiful and it’s Las Vegas and it’s Killers and it is so Day & Age. Desert night, groove and pop and feeling. I love it. Day & Age drops a rank from The Killers first two albums, but don’t let that make a bad impression. A not insignificant part of that is pure preference and Day & Age is just unlucky in that sense.

Sam’s Town and Hot Fuss have song after song that rank in my favorites. Day & Age “merely” has song after song that I love. “Human” is the one you probably know, it’s been played a lot. A whole bunch. A real bucketload of times. It’s a good song, for sure, just not my favorite, and not enough to warrant the attention it gets. It sets off the snobbish part of me where someone says “You like The Killers? Is that the band that plays “Mr. Brightside” and “Human”? I love The Killers!”, and so I inquire further only to learn that those are in fact the only two Killers songs they know and it’s just… disappointing. Anyway. Good song, I do like it, I’ll sing along, I’ll jam. Just not a favorite. “Spaceman” is a love, and I have a lot of nostalgia for it. When I was little I was like, “Aliens! Woo!”, and that was exciting, and so I love it for that in addition to the fact that it’s a great song. “Joy Ride” is some groovy funky goodness, I highly recommend it with the windows down and the speakers blaring. “A Dustland Fairytale” is poetic and wonderful and an absolute favorite. “I Can’t Stay” is, perhaps, my favorite song ever. Single favorite song ever is a hard title to grant because it will so often shift, or there will be a song I love and have in my head for a week, or I’ll like a song more or less overtime- plus, I know so so many songs, it’s just plain hard to pick. And, all of this being said, “I Can’t Stay” might just be my single favorite song. I always come back to it, to its emotion and its swell and its strange and its wonder and its harp and harmonies. If there is a single good thing to come from Day & Age, it’s “I Can’t Stay”.

Thankfully, there are tons of great things to come from Day & Age, because it’s a fantastic album.

Battle Born is my least favorite Killers album. I still think it’s good- it was my favorite when I was little, and listening to it now I think it knows what it is and remains a cohesive experience all the way through. It still has great songs: “Runaways” and “Miss Atomic Bomb” are both undeniably excellent, and I’ve always been partial to “From Here On Out”. It is honest and good.

It’s biggest failing, I think, is that it isn’t very charismatic. Charisma being the quality of drawing others into oneself, when ones feelings are of an attractive nature. Magnetism. Battle Born is not charismatic. Once you get to know it, or even just decide to let yourself into it, it has a lot to offer. But it doesn’t do it for you. This is a lot of why listening to it as an album is so much better than as a collection of songs. I rarely would want to listen to “Here With Me” or “Be Still” purely for their own sakes, even though I love both of those songs and they are incredibly meaningful for me (my mom quoted “Be Still” at her brother’s funeral). But, when I’m listening through the album, they’re given context and they fulfill a role, and in that context they fulfill that role really really well. The investment you make when you listen to an album, rather than listening to songs, allows you to see it more in its own eyes than your own, and for Battle Born in particular that makes a huge difference.

I love Battle Born and its purity of heart. I love it for its willingness to be a little bit difficult so that I’m forced to listen to it on its terms, because it’s better for that. However, charisma is part of music, and as much as I love Battle Born, I don’t think it’s up to par with the rest of the Killers catalog.

Wonderful Wonderful came after the five year hiatus that followed Battle Born, The Killers least loved album. There was a lot of anticipation, at least for my family and I, and a fair bit of nervousness. Could The Killers come back swinging?

Yes. Yes they could.

Wonderful Wonderful is an album with a lot of confidence, and that only does it credit. I was nervous for the Killers first album in five years, nervous that they’d be nervous, nervous that this would be a final half-hearted hurrah with no teeth. “The Man” immediately shuts down that train of thought. It isn’t just confident, it’s arrogant. Cocky, prideful, and fantastic. If anything is USDA certified lean, it’s this song. It’s immediately followed by “Rut”, which, in stark contrast to “The Man”, offers a display of desperately relatable struggle and humility- and it’s a bop, too. “Run for Cover” is an instant classic. “Out of My Mind” has grown on me; it started very meh but as I’ve listened to it it’s filled out. It’s not groundbreaking or anything, but it’s a good, solid song. “The Calling” is one of my personal favorites: the almost sinister sounding intro into a funk with a heavy bass never fails to get my feet tapping and my head nodding, it is exactly my jam. I love when quotes are taken from less popular sections of the bible or when popular bible quotes are reframed, and “The Calling” does this so well. “…but they that are sick” is usually read as pure loving condescension, but here they’re almost a warning. Commandments in the bible tend to be read as truth, much like the nutritional label on a box of cereal- we’re told the way it is, we agree, we move on. “The Calling” reminds that the bible doesn’t have friendly advice, it has commandments. “Tyson vs. Douglas” started as one of the most middling in the album for me, but it improved with every listen. Now it feels raw and real. Its intro pulls me in and its theme of betrayal of the status quo, of the upset being an injustice, is deeply relatable for me. The other five tracks range from ‘sometimes great, sometimes good’ to ‘dislike’.

“Wonderful Wonderful”, the titular track of the album, is probably my least favorite. My older brother loves it. I want to skip it every time it comes on, and I’m not entirely sure why. I think his reasons for liking it are valid- it is powerful, personal. When you belt along with it you feel its power and its person. But it’s never clicked for me. It’s always remained slow and overly dramatic in my ears. I’ve just never connected to the song. Honestly, I never really connected to the album as a whole the same way I have the other Killers albums, and with almost half the album sometimes feeling like filler (really good filler, but still), it’s probably my least favorite of the S rank Killers albums. That being said, I love this album, S rank is no joke, and Wonderful Wonderful earned it.

Imploding the Mirage knows what it is. It was crafted with only the strictest intentions. The ethos of the making of this album was that if a song didn’t fit the vibe as inspired by the album cover, it was cut. End of story. Imploding the Mirage is better for it. From start to finish it is one cohesive piece of music- each song leads into the next, each song draws inspiration from its brothers, and you can hear that. I praised Battle Born for the same thing, but Imploding the Mirage: a) does it better, and b) has individually better songs. And it is so groovy! It fires on all cylinders the whole way through. It’s impossible to listen to this album without dancing, at least a little. In that sense, on the “vibe scale” so to speak, I’ve always felt it the most similar to Day & Age, though I probably like Imploding the Mirage better.

I dislike “Lightning Fields”, I don’t love “Running Towards a Place”, and… that’s about it. Every other song in this album is incredible. They all serve their purpose and they’re all just really fun to listen to. “When The Dreams Run Dry” is the only one remaining that’s sometimes tricky. It’s definitely grown on me, and there’s no doubt anymore that I love it, but I’ve always felt like I should love it more. It’s one that I listen to and think about and I observe all of these elements and tropes that I love in songs, and for whatever reason they don’t click the right way in this song. I like it less than the sum of its parts and that always throws me off, even though less than the sum of its parts is still a great song. Outside of that, there is no confusion. “Fire In Bone” is one of my favorites, fulfilling my itch for funk, and fulfilling it hard. The opening drums and bass in particular are delicious, they make me hungry for the rest. I’ve always felt “Fire In Bone” and “The Calling” (Wonderful Wonderful) are twins: they both got dat fonky fonk, they both are biblical in origin. I probably like “Fire In Bone” better, though. I like the music more on most days and I love the writing. I really like “The Calling”‘s writing. I love “Fire In Bone”‘s. It’s about the prodigal son- “fire in bone”, in the bible, is a specific phrase that describes the experience of being in the presence of God, particularly when unworthy. It’s such a good use of specific vocabulary, such an efficient use of language for a medium in which efficiency of language can be everything. Plus, it sounds cool and the other lyrics built around it are also fantastic. “Dying Breed” didn’t start as a favorite, but it certainly became one with repeated listens. Most songs build to a climax and then fall- “Dying Breed” grows and grows and then it reaches its peak and it keeps going, and you finish the song satisfied anyway.

“Imploding the Mirage” is such a perfect representation of the album. It’s so bright and it radiates that brightness. It has such pride in its peculiarities, it’s almost aggressively cheerful. The bass is energetic, the chorus is sung with a sharp lightness that builds into the dramatic ‘imploding the mirage’. You can hear how much fun Flowers has singing it, and it makes it that much more fun to listen to. That applies to the whole album. It’s a fun album to listen to and you can hear that it was a fun album to make and that makes it more fun to listen to. Imploding the Mirage sits right on the edge of S and S+, an exemplar for the combination of fun songwriting and intentional album construction. Love it.

Everything I said about Imploding the Mirage, about coherency and keeping strict to an idea, about integrity of the album- it’s all doubly true in Pressure Machine. Brandon Flowers grew up in Nephi, Utah, a small town in the Southwest. Pressure Machine is a record of his town and his upbringing, about the moments that left an impression on him. It is personal and very very real. It’s dark and it’s honest and it is incredibly well put together.

It’s hard for me to rate Pressure Machine because I think it’s probably The Killers’ best album, but it’s kind of my least favorite to listen to? Sorta? I recognize the craftsmanship, and I do love to listen to it, but it takes a very particular mood for me to actually want to listen to it. I made the observation of Battle Born that it’s well made but with little charisma. Pressure Machine is that times ten. I’m sure it has a different pull on different people, but that’s how it is for me. I have to force myself to get started a little bit, and only then can I listen and go “wow”. It’s personal and rich and I can only take so much of it, but it is unmistakably a “wow”. There’s an abridged version of the album that cuts all of the interviews that open each song, I hate that. Don’t listen to that. It’s a compromise from an album that’s great because it refused to compromise. And I love those interviews, they’re some of my favorite parts of the album. The interviews come from people who live in Nephi, they’re real. They were recorded after the songs were, so they were fit to each song after the songs were done. That’s the wildest thing to me, because if I didn’t know better I would swear that the songs were written for the interviews. It just goes to show how well Flowers knew his town, knew his stories.

I do love Pressure Machine, and my appreciation for it grows with each listen, but it takes effort for me to enjoy. Sometimes that’s for the better, sometimes it’s not. That’s the conflict I have with Pressure Machine, but I want to end on the fact that it’s really really really an excellent album, because it is.

also these two

These are still full Killers albums, I’ve just separated them for organizational reasons. Sawdust is B-sides and Don’t Waste Your Wishes is a Christmas album. I think the distinction I’m making between them and the “real” albums is self explanatory.

I should probably apologize to Sawdust. Just, all around. I’ve gone and done did it dirty in my head, all rude-like. Sawdust is a collection of early Killers B-sides, so it’s already fairly niche and unloved. The track that draws to it the most attention is “Shadowplay”, which I don’t like. It’s one of the few Killers songs I’d just straight up rather not listen to, and so I tend to conflate all of Sawdust with this one song I don’t like and then when I think of the album I think of it poorly, which is poor (of me). It’s a really solid album. Probably not one of my favorites, but it’s still quality Killers, and (I don’t know if you knew this about me) I love The Killers. Notable songs include “All the Pretty Faces”, which I always think is somewhere in Sam’s Town because I like it so much and you can hear that it’s from the same era. “The Ballad of Michael Valentine” is a favorite, “Leave the Bourbon On the Shelf”, “Who Let You Go?”, “Tranquilize”, “Sweet Talk”- I really like a lot of the songs in this album. Stupid “Shadowplay” messing me up. And, despite being B-sides, it has a lot of the cohesiveness I’ve been talking about, it’s a full, legit album. It’s really good. Sorry for the hard feelings, Sawdust.

From 2006 to 2016, The Killers released a Christmas single every year. Don’t Waste Your Wishes is a compilation album of those 11 songs. All the money from sales went to the Product Red campaign, in a proper showing of Christmas spirit. This is Christmas album, and a compilation album, and it’s also probably one of the best Killers albums around.

Don’t Waste Your Wishes has loads of songs that are both spectacular in their own right and spectacular as Christmas songs: “Dirt Sledding” is one of my all time favorite Killers songs and an honest depiction of the archetypal Christmas (I think), “A Great Big Sled” is undeniably Christmas (not just a love song during winter) and undeniably a banger, “Don’t Shoot Me Santa” and “I Feel It In My Bones” illustrate some of the possibly macabre issues Flowers has with Santa Claus while also being rocking Killers songs. Don’t Waste Your Wishes is a Christmas album, yes, but it’s also full of legitimately good music in its own right.

In addition to that, it serves as a kind of mural of The Killers first decade. The album is set in chronological order of release, so as you listen to it you can hear The Killers move from Sam’s Town to Day & Age to Battle Born to the dawning of Wonderful Wonderful, and it is one of my favorite things. “A Great Big Sled” and “Don’t Shoot Me Santa” are practically the honorary 13th and 14th tracks to Sam’s Town, and that is so clearly audible. “¡Happy Birthday Guadalupe!” expands Day and Age, “I Feel It In My Bones” expands Battle Born, “Dirt Sledding” heralds Wonderful Wonderful (or it could expand The Desired Effect, if you want to look at it that way). The whole album acts as a really really really good tour along memory lane.

Don’t Waste Your Wishes is just so powerful. It’s always been my Christmas music, it’s always been my family’s Christmas music. To my ears, it is Christmas. Our contribution to family Christmas parties is typically a performance of one of these songs. When we did “Joel the Lump of Coal”, we taped tinfoil to one side of a black trash bag and made my little sister wear it black side out while we sang, so that when my dad gave her a big ol’ bear hug and we flipped it inside out she would transform into a diamond. The album is potent, it’s strong. I only listen to it during the Christmas season, because I’m not a monster, and that helps. It gives it this special aura, this sacredness. Every time I listen to it it’s a little bit fresh again, like a new Killers album I forgot was coming- except it’s not new, it’s everything that’s old and wonderful. Don’t Waste Your Wishes is my definitive Christmas album, and in a very real sense it is the definitive Killers album- at least for their first 12 years.

and also these two (Brandon Flowers)

Brandon Flowers has released two solo albums, Flamingo and The Desired Effect. They are different from typical Killers stuff but I consider them Killers, and I don’t think that’s unfair, particularly with more recent albums having been written mostly by Flowers. I don’t think it entirely unreasonable to claim a clear distinction between Flowers’ solo albums and The Killers, but also I do? Flowers is, in large part, The Killers. If you look at album releases over time, they’re almost all twoish years apart except for the gap between Day & Age (2008) and Battle Born (2012) and the gap between Battle Born and Wonderful Wonderful (2017), gaps bridged almost perfectly by Flamingo (2010) and The Desired Effect (2015) respectively. Contrary opinions aside, they occupy the same space in my brain and here I am king, so this is the system I’m working with. Plus, it’s way more convenient this way, I don’t wanna make a separate page for this.

Flamingo is a testament to The Killers’ (and Flowers’) birthplace, Las Vegas. Dirt and glamour and temptation and heartbreak and redemption are the promise, and Flamingo delivers. I love this album. It’s so much of what I love from Flowers. His earnestness, his storytelling, his drama, they come through so strongly here. Flamingo is an effective outlet for Flowers: it’s personal while retaining its craft and construction, its legitimacy as a pop album. Or rock? Alt-rock? Alt-rock-pop-folk? I have no idea, honestly, all the music genres are kinda useless sometimes, or I’m just bad at them. Anyway, tangent aside, it’s a well made album that retains its integrity both to mainstream expectations and to Flowers as a musician.

“Was It Something I Said?” is arguably the the most pop-py song on the album. It’s bright, cheerful, and catchy. It also makes my little sister cry every time she listens to it because it’s sad, anxious, and painfully real. “Magdalena” is a contender for Flamingo’s best song. It belts out forgiveness and freedom, the power of starting over, and it’s absolutely one of the best road trip songs on the planet. “The Clock Was Tickin'” is a life and a love in five minutes. If “Was It Something I Said?” makes my little sister cry, “The Clock Was Tickin'” makes her bawl. Which sucks for her because it’s also one of my favorite songs on the album. “Only the Young” and “Hard Enough” and “Jilted Lovers and Broken Hearts” and, well, basically all but two of the songs on the album are songs I adore.

Flamingo is a favorite. It’s tender and true, and it’s fun and interesting to listen to.

*Maybe. The Desired Effect is the contender here for favorite Killers album. It’s a tricky situation because the albums are different and they fulfill such different purposes; they operate under different rules. I go to them for different sounds. However, if I had to choose, no ifs or whats about it, The Desired Effect wins out. I’ll let Sam’s Town keep a claim to favorite Killers because there’s an argument to be made about Flowers’ solo albums not technically being Killers, and ’cause I love Sam’s Town, but… The Desired Effect is just so good, it’s hard to think of a single thing I don’t like about it (well, there is one thing, but actually no, and I’ll get to it in a minute).

Honestly, it’s not even that close of a call. The Desired Effect isn’t just my favorite Killers album, it’s my favorite album, full stop. It is the ideal, the goal, the dream, the wanted result. I love every song on the album, all of them are all time favorites but one. I love the overall sound of the album- not just its thematic consistency, but its sound, the mood of the album and the songs that encourages. Aaaand, also the theme. “The Desired Effect”? What a perfect name. It’s about sacrifice, about chances taken and chances to be taken. Risk, failure, hope, vision. It’s such an accurate simplification of such a real personal truth. I love it so so much because “the desired effect” has been my personal mantra for years, because I believe in it more strongly than I believe in anything. I love it so so much because clearly Flowers believes in it too. The idea of living life for “the desired effect” is, I think, universal. It’s inescapable. It makes it easy to write songs that fit because every story is, on some level, about a shot taken and a score received. Of course all the songs fit. But damn if Flowers doesn’t execute.

The opening track, “Dreams Come True” is optimistic and infectious, full of wonder and magic. “Lonely Town” is somber and reflective- and also a bright, fantastic pop song. “Diggin’ Up the Heart” provides a narrative, an archetypal model for the feeing of missed chances and robbed opportunities- and also a bright, fantastic pop song. “The Desired Effect” is the one thing I said I don’t like about The Desired Effect. The titular track of the album, an absolutely fantastic song, and it was cut. It’s not there. It was taken off of YouTube, it’s not available on any streaming services, it’s gone. One of my favorite songs on my favorite album and I had to download it from some punk on Soundcloud. If you’re determined you can get a hold of it but it’s a pain and it makes me angry. “Between Me and You” doesn’t make me angry. It’s honest and earnest, the classic Flowers combo. To struggle and question, but to endure because not only did you commit, but you do commit- “the desired effect” isn’t just how you want things to happen, it’s how you constantly fight to remake yourself in your own image. It’s about how that’s so difficult and so, so beautiful. Probably the best song on the album.

Maybe. I dunno, they’re all amazing. Trying to rank something as subjective as a song is silly anyway, who’s stupid idea was that? Trying to mess me up when all I really want to say is that I love The Desired Effect, love everything about it, love its heart and soul and energy, love it’s music. The Desired Effect is my perfect album. 10/10.