Track Review ⊙ Daily Ops Home
The Killers :: "Read My Mind"From Sam's Town (Island; 2006)
In a less than favorable review of Sam’s Town, Entertainment Weekly derisively referred to the Killers as “Bon Jovi for the MySpace Generation.” While hardly inaccurate, I like to think of them more as the Dandy Warhols for Panic! At the Disco fans; not because the Killers hang out with models or brag about their drug consumption, but rather due to their maddening tendency to craft great singles and surround them with unfathomable dreck on their parent “albums” (a difference being that I don’t think The Killers do this on purpose).
And believe me when I tell you that Sam’s Town is a shit record. Overblown and overproduced to the point of hilarity, it’s the aural equivalent of an ADD-addled eight-year old dressing up in his father’s work clothes and “rocking out” in front of the bedroom mirror.
But “Read My Mind” is simply fantastic. The circular sticker affixed to Sam’s Town would lead one to believe that the uber-lame Morrisey rip “Bones” is slated to be the second single, which would suggest to me that some low-level peon at Island’s A&R department needs to be fired because that track sure as hell isn’t going to move as many units as “Read My Mind” come Christmas time.
Although it’s little more than a facsimile of a cheerier Interpol or recent U2 (in particular “City of Blinding Lights”), “Read My Mind” is proof positive that when Brandon Flowers elects to channel Bono as opposed to Brooce, the Killers unquestionably possess the ability to be a quality mainstream act. Dave Keuning’s shimmering guitar lead is similar to the one he utilized in “Mr. Brightside”; the rhythm section doesn’t ham it up, and for perhaps the only song on all of Sam’s Town, Flowers holds back. His vocal melody is pleasant and practically conversational, he doesn’t strain to hit notes he’s clearly incapable of, and while the chorus certainly dials things up, it never borders on the offensive. Lyrics like “Woman open the door / don’t let it sting! / I want to see that smile again!” are more than a little lame, but it’s nothing that Bono hasn’t already written, and the main refrain of “I don’t mind if you don’t mind / ‘cuz I don’t shine when you don’t shine,” while ridiculous, is unbelievably catchy.
Provided it gets an official release, there’s no reason why “Read My Mind” won’t grace the climactic last ten minutes of an episode of The O.C., stir slow motion N.F.L. highlight reels, or punch the stereo speakers within every Hot Topic store in the country. It’s probably the best Killers song to date; good enough that it forces one to listen to Sam’s Town again with fresh ears, believing that if the Killers are capable of writing a song that good, there’s simply no way the remainder of Sam’s Town can be as skull crushingly awful as you remember.
Then you realize that the first thirty seconds of the next song rhymes “cocaine” with “brain,” “pain,” and “refrain.”
David M. Goldstein :: 25 October 2006 |
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