My 30 Best Albums of the Decade: #8

Year is running out faster than Ronan Tynan at a Seder. Need to get back on the ball, still got a lot to do. For nobody's amusement other than my own of course.

#8. Hot Fuss - The Killers

There are a couple things in life that - regardless of how often I’m exposed to them, contemplate them, or experience them - I still can’t make up my mind on how I feel about them. Hummus is one of them. Emerill is another. Same with Tom Hanks and high-end vodka. You can also add the Killers to the mix.



Five years after first hearing them I still don’t know. Talented? Lucky? Overrated? Underappreciated? Manufactured? Original? I’m clear on two things however:


1. Their second album Sam’s Town was the most disappointing follow-up album in music history since Slave to the Grind.


2. It can only be classified as such a bomb because their debut album Hot Fuss was an instant classic, despite how overplayed it may have gotten at times.


I have to credit my wife with summing it up best: “These guys sound like they’re making a John Hughes movie soundtrack.” To some that may be an insult. But people are so easily insulted these days anyway so don’t put any credence into that. Decades later (ouch. old.) the old John Hughes movie tunes still resonate, and reappear in movie after movie to the point where a whole new generation’s been exposed to them, without ever having the joy of watching the Breakfast Club or St Elmo’s Fire. OK, tangent on the incredible ability of the late John Hughes to compliment his movies with a near perfect score is over.

From start to finish, Hot Fuss is eminently listenable (one would think all albums should be, but we all know that aint the case). Sure, a lot of it is catchy, but who cares because it’s also pretty real.


Who hasn’t had their Mr. Brightside moment? Either as Mr. Brightside himself, or his cheap two-timing slutty girlfriend on the verge of jerking off another dude as she’s being disrobed, or, as the other dude. I kinda like those anti-love songs that pull no punches about how fucked up relationships can be. Save me your “I Will Always Love You” or “Miss You Like Crazy” crap. Give me a “Brightside” or a “Say Goodbye” any day of the week. Or even Motley Crue’s “Your All I Need” (yeah, google the lyrics and find out how twisted I can be)


While the whole album has a distinct sound, it’s also pretty diverse. Lead singer Brandon Flowers (who I keep mistaking for a Steelers linebacker) tries a tad too hard to sound like Jim Morrison in the opening minute of “On Top” but that doesn’t last too long. “All These Things That I’ve Done” (Known for it’s repetitive made-for-Gatorade-and-Nike-commercials chorus of “I Got Soul But I’m Not a Soldier”) is one of the better songs cut this decade.

And then you have “Somebody Told Me”, which, honestly, I don’t know if it’s a “Lola” style homage to transvestites or not, so I’m not really going to get into it and make myself sound foolish. Don’t need anymore help in that department.


Some songs take more than a few listens to really get into (“Andy You’re a Star” comes to mind). And as always, the fact that it’s an album that can either be cranked for all to enjoy, or conversely be played as simple background music also makes an enticing argument for greatness. But there’s no greater compliment one could pay an album than to say that’s fully enjoyable from start to finish, and there aren’t many albums cut in the 00’s that met that mantra better than Hot Fuss.

Molly Ringwald, Rob Lowe, Anthony Michael Hall and the gang would be pleased.