October 24, 2006

PAYIN' THE COST:


Born to restyle
(ALEXANDRA GILL, 10/19/06, Globe and Mail

Last time we checked their look in the mirror, when the Killers were riding high on Hot Fuss (their debut album, which shot out of nowhere to sell five million copies worldwide), they were wearing eyeliner, channelling the Cures with glittery new-wave pop tempos and being touted as the best British band this side of the Atlantic.

For Sam's Town, the band's highly anticipated follow-up — which made its debut at No. 1 on the Canadian Nielsen Soundscan chart last week — the group has grown handlebar mustaches, metaphorically jumped behind the wheel of a Chevy, cranked up the bass and reinvented itself as an all-American, anthem-sized rock ‘n' roll guitar band.

To almost anyone who will listen, Flowers has been gushing praise for Bruce Springsteen, explaining how his new-found appreciation for Born in the USA played a major part in the metamorphosis.

He also boasted to the British music weekly NME that Sam's Town was “one of the best albums of the past 20 years.”

This startling self-confidence, combined with the immodest references to rock's biggest icons (Flowers has also referenced U2, Oasis and Queen), unleashed a critical hammering. Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield said the Killers “leave no pompous arena cliché untweaked”; Entertainment Weekly's Jody Rosen said the album plays like “a parody of rock bombast”; and in The New York Times, Sia Michel called it “a classic case of a young band overreaching to assert its significance.”

Flowers is unrepentant.

“I'm not ashamed of how much I love [Springsteen],” the 25-year-old singer says backstage before the Vancouver concert.


Hot Fuss was terrific, but you can't blame them for tiring of being The Cure--the makeup and hairstyling alone must take hours a day.

Posted by Orrin Judd at October 24, 2006 9:45 AM
Comments

Arrogant bastards, but I saw them in AC Saturday and they were pretty good.

Posted by: some random person at October 24, 2006 11:46 AM

Bears have it just as bad; How many hours does it take to pick through, groom, and brush a thick mat of back hair?

Posted by: Mike Beversluis at October 24, 2006 1:20 PM

Not as much as you'd think.

Posted by: oj at October 24, 2006 1:26 PM

U2, Springsteen, Oasis?

Ugh...

Johnny Thunders, Shooter Jennings and Hank III is more my style.

Posted by: Pepys at October 24, 2006 2:26 PM

Sorry, but the more of the Killers I hear, the less I care whether I ever hear them again or not. It's not that they're bad, they're just . . . unimpressive.

Posted by: Mike Morley at October 24, 2006 3:28 PM

A friend lent me "The End of the Century: The Stiry of the Ramones," which I watched last night. Now that was rock and roll. And get off my lawn.

Posted by: Ted Welter at October 24, 2006 3:38 PM

The Ramones used to show up and play on the profoundly deranged kids show, Uncle Floyd:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Floyd

www.unclefloyd.com/


Beat the pants of Power Rangers.

Actually, here's a YouTube of DeeDee on the show:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmGLwqLg_XY


Posted by: oj at October 24, 2006 3:48 PM

Now that is strange.

Posted by: ted welter at October 24, 2006 11:53 PM
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