YMMV / The Killers (Band)

• Anvilicious: "Land of the Free" and the accompanying video takes aim at the illegal immigration argument with all the subtlety and nuance of putting a loaded shotgun to the Border Patrol's crotch and blowing their balls off. Considering that the music video is a Spike Lee joint, it probably comes with the territory.
  • Although on his hiatus from the band when "Land of the Free" was written, Dave Keuning also chimes in with his thoughts on immigration in his song "Don't Poke the Bear" off his solo album Mild Case of Everything.
• Alternative Character Interpretation / Fridge Horror: "Bones" is not officially part of the murder trilogy, but consider this: it's about a guy trying to convince his girlfriend to go down to the beach with him at night, while "Midnight Show" is about a guy who takes his girlfriend to the beach at night and strangles her.
  • Oh, and the video was directed by Tim Burton.
  • There's a different take on "Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine" in live performances. Sometimes the line "she couldn't scream while I held her close" is replaced with "she couldn't scream while I held her throat". Not always, but it's enough to imply the protagonist might not be the innocent man he claims.
  • In "Mr. Brightside," it's unclear the girlfriend/wife is cheating on him and he's unwilling to confront it ("It was only a kiss..."), or if she isn't cheating on him but he allows his jealousy and insecurities to get the best of him anyway ("Jealousy, turning saints into the seas..."). Fans debate to this day.
  • "In Terrible Thing" its possible the narrator doesn't go through with their contemplated suicide, but the person who does get killed is the boy at the rodeo (i.e. "the bull draws blood.") So the narrator continues to suffer in the closet unknown to their family and friends, while the town rallies over a rodeo tragedy instead.
• Awesome Music: So much to list. "Mr. Brightside", "Read My Mind" and "Human" come to many minds, although the other songs are all good in their own right. "Run for Cover", "The Man" and the title track off of Wonderful Wonderful also qualify.
• Broken Base: Battle Born its either seen as a great bombastic album of rousing arena rockers and epic road trip worthy songs to cruise down the desert with, or emblematic of the band's slump in the 2010's, sandwiched between their early 2000's boom and their more experimental and self assured 2020's albums. Even the band seems to flip flop on if they love or hate the album now.
• Critical Dissonance: Pressure Machine is a great example of an album loved by critics for its Darker and Edgier tone and experimental content, but is also controversial among the band's long-term fans for those same reasons.
  • With Sam's Town as well but in reverse. Flowers and the band hyped the album up in pre-release interviews, and critics; perhaps seeing blood in the water heavily criticized the sophomore album, particularly in the review from Rolling Stone. When readers answered to a "Most Underrated Album of the Decade" poll in Rolling Stone a few years later, they pushed to ensure Sam's Town got a top spot as a Take That! against the magazine itself.
    • Despite being vindicated by time with Sam's Town its clear the band has a bit of a chip on their shoulder for still being ignored by the Grammy's in the years since, their only nomination ever coming from their Hot Fuss era. Shortly after the release of Imploding the Mirage the band spoofed the political discourse over the 2020 US Election via jokingly demanding "a recount" of the Grammy votes on their Twitter page.
• Eclipsed by the Remix: The remix of "Mr. Brightside" from Sawdust may not technically fit the trope since its not as popular as the original version off Hot Fuss. However the remix has become a live concert staple particularly during the 2022 Imploding the Mirage Tour where a version of the song titled "Mr. Brightside 50/50" combines the remix and original version, so the remix is gaining notoriety for its live show usage.
• Epic Riff: "Mr. Brightside" accomplishes this almost instantaneously.
  • "Run For Cover".
  • "My Own Soul's Warning"'s riff manages to be both awesome and heartbreaking at once.
  • "Caution" Lindsey Buckingham's guitar solo. That is all.
  • "Cody" With the same spot as the fourth track in Pressure Machine that "Caution" held in Imploding the Mirage, the short guitar solo in "Cody" is a powerful statement that Dave Keuning is back.
• First Installment Wins: Whether it's their best album is frequently up for debate, but Hot Fuss is both their most commercially successful album and the source of their biggest hit.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: They're much more widely known and respected in the UK than their native America. "Mr. Brightside" is a club staple there and holds numerous chart records. It's reappeared on the list in every year since its 2004 release, and has spent over three years total on it. Some of their songs have been featured in the Forza Horizon games, which is developed by a British developer. Moreover, all seven of their studio albums have reached the top spot on the UK album chart while only their fifth album (Wonderful Wonderful) managed the same accomplishment on the American chart... before plummeting to 59 the next week.
• Growing the Beard: Quite literally for Sam's Town the band all did grow beards, although the album itself was an attempt to provide a more Americana theme to their music with a loose narrative. Again with Pressure Machine years later, which saw the band take on a more stripped down and somber sound, although only Ronnie was actually sporting a full beard by that point in time.
  • And Ronnie's beard is spectacular.
• Ho Yay:
  • A few of their songs, most obviously "Somebody Told Me", "Andy, You're A Star", and "Where The White Boys Dance".
  • The band themselves. Especially Brandon and Ronnie. Just watch the video for "Read My Mind" and pay close attention while they're biking through Tokyo.
    • Ronnie would move to Park City, Utah; and only a few years later Brandon followed apparently buying a house in the same neighborhood. Its pretty obvious the two are very close friends as well as bandmates. It did make it easy though for the two to continue working on music together even during the COVID lockdown in 2020, performing acoustic versions of their songs in places as exotic as "Brandon's downstairs bathroom."
• Memetic Mutation: "Are We Human Or Are We Dancer?" "Dancer? don't you mean "Denser"?" "It's DANCER!"
  • "It started out as a kiss, how did it end up like this? It was only a kiss, it was only a kiss!"
  • "Jealousy, turning saints into the sea. Swimming through sick lullabies, choking on your alibis. But it's just the price I pay, destiny is calling me, open up my eager eyes, 'cause I'm Mr. Brightside"
  • "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier... I've got soul but I'm not a soldier..."
    • For more recent audiences, the same line is associated with Terminal Lance and The White Donkey.
  • The trend of "Mr. Brightside But..." and putting an awkward setting to fit the song's ironic lyrical themes to its peppy beat. The best known one is "She left you last minute at prom so you're crying in a school bathroom while Mr. Brightside plays".
• Misaimed Fandom: "The Man" is actually a lambasting of empty headed, egotistical machismo. You'd be surprised how many people miss that point, and unironically find it a song glorifying all things manly and badass.
• Narm Charm: Almost the entirety of Battle Born and even large chunks of Day & Age can come across as this. Its really only music that works when being belted out in a crowded arena concert, and even then the pure Eagleland bravado of Battle Born requires a highly dedicated performance to get the audience to buy into the Narm Charm. Not surprisingly other than a few select songs, much of Battle Born has been removed from later live concerts' setlists as Brandon admits he struggles to take himself seriously while performing many of the songs from that album.
• Nightmare Fuel: "Midnight Show" is about a Crazy Jealous Guy who murders his girlfriend and then goes driving around town with her corpse in the backseat, looking for a place to dump her body.
  • Just the Murder Trilogy in general. Especially when you listen to them in order starting with "Leave the Bourbon On The Shelf", then "Midnight Show", and finally ending with "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine".
  • The video for "Bones", unsurprisingly directed by Tim Burton.
  • The closing rendition of "Silent Night". Also could double as a Funny Moment.
  • The message of "Mr. Brightside," combined with Tear Jerker; the singer is apparently getting cheated on by his girlfriend/wife, and he knows it, but he doesn't want to do anything about it because he seems to think he deserves it or isn't even worth her time to begin with. Very existentially troubling, that. Alternatively, the girlfriend/wife isn't cheating on him (the kiss was platonic or imagined), and he knows it, but he lets his jealousy and insecurities get the best of him anyway, and mentally clocks out or walks away from a loving relationship based on something he knows probably didn't happen. Either way, very existentially troubling.
  • "You forget how dark the canyon gets, its a real uneasy feeling. I never had much patience for guys that hit, for more than just the obvious reasons..." yeah good luck sleeping at night after that murder scene in "Desperate Things."
• Refrain from Assuming: "All These Things That I've Done" is frequently known as "I Got Soul", and has even been covered using this title.
• Signature Song: "Mr. Brightside", with "Somebody Told Me" a close second.
  • "When You Were Young" and "Human" are widely recognized tunes as well.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Runaways" uses a lot of the same chord progressions as "Heat Of The Moment" by Asia, especially the power chords at the end of the first chorus. Fitting, as both are more or less about the same subject.
  • "When You Were Young" intentionally is built to mimic "Thunder Road" and "Born to Run" by Springsteen with the guitar solo following a structure similar to Born to Run's saxophone melody.
  • The guitar solo to "Mr. Brightside"? That is Beethoven's Ode to Joy!
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: After Sam's Town came out, the band got hit with strong Springsteen comparisons in both praise and criticism. It reached a point where Springsteen himself had to reassure Flowers that he went through the same thing with Bob Dylan comparisons, and that it wasn't a big deal.
• Vindicated by History: Wonderful Wonderful initially divided fans and critics who recognized the album's attempt to fuse the folk style of Sam's Town with the bombastic arena rock of Day & Age and Battle Born, creating a debate over how successful it was at that goal. When Imploding the Mirage dropped and was revealed to be a more mature and introspective continuation of the themes and sound of Wonderful Wonderful, attitudes towards the latter album improved massively and it is now seen as the start of the band's 2020's critical resurgence.
  • Of course with Sam's Town an album that was panned by critics as an overhyped album that was hobbled by the shift from Post-Punk to Americana, especially thanks to a boastful statement from the band on it being "one of the most important albums of the decade." To eventually becoming embraced by fans who saw it as indeed one of the most important albums of the decade.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?:
  • In "Tranquilize" the last lyrics are "with the Bushes and the bombs are tranquilized."
  • Even before that, I've got soul, but I'm not a soldier...that album came out in 2004...
  • Flowers now uses the lyric "the vampires and the bombs" in live performances.
  • From "Run For Cover" the lyrics include the line "He's got a big smile, He's fake news, just run for cover you got nothing left to lose."

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