Why I Heart The Killers
Last month, Austin unleashed an impressive stream of vehement vitriol against The Killers, here and also here. It included a number of Exhibits, and if you haven’t read it yet, I would encourage you to take a look. I may disagree with him, but his comments are entertaining enough to merit your time.
That said, I remain an unabashed and unashamed fan of The Killers, and their latest release (Day & Age) has only strengthened my love. It’s chock full of anthemic pop, it makes me want to dance and sing way higher than I ought to in public, and its lyrics are forgettable without being reprehensible. What more should we be asking from rock music?
The truth is, I stopped looking for depth in rock music a long time ago. Some bands have clever turns of phrase, some have pretty melodies, and some even have both. But if I want to be challenged intellectually, or if I want to meditate on something, why would I turn to Radiohead, or U2, or The Killers, or Death Cab for Cutie, or The Decemberists? The lyrical substance simply isn’t there.
And perhaps that’s why I like The Killers. They’re no more potent than any other piece of pop culture I encounter, and they’re so obviously nonsensical that I don’t have to cut through the PR spin that Bono and others desperately throw into their music. I happen to think that The Killers are fun to listen to. They’ve got the pop hooks, they’ve got decent production, and they’re good at making me forget how cold it is outside.
Rock’n'roll is entertainment. Forget what Paste Magazine tries to tell you. Sure, music and movies and books can say something worth saying, and if they’re any good, they’ll have more depth than entertainment. But at heart, it’s really about whether or not you enjoy it. If you don’t, fine: that’s your privilege. Nobody said you had to enjoy everything.
Shoe, 
D 9:37 am on December 17, 2008 Permalink
So, what would qualify a song as “bad,” in your opinion?
Kate 11:42 am on December 17, 2008 Permalink
I’ve come to think that music is rather like food in this way. You can argue all you like about oyster being inherently good, but if someone doesn’t enjoy it, no amount of arguing will change that.
F 12:43 pm on December 17, 2008 Permalink
One of the reasons I loathe Pitchfork is because they find it incredibly easy to hate on people. And while I too exhibit an overly-cynical attitude, I view that as a sign of immaturity that I really really really want to outgrow.
C.S. Lewis and W.H. Auden both strongly suggested that negative reviews are a waste of time. Which leads me to ask, why have qualifications for what makes a song “bad”? Focus instead on what makes something good. As Auden said (and I paraphrase), “Books that were worth remembering may have been forgotten, but no book was remembered that should have been forgotten.”
And I think that’s wise.
D 12:47 pm on December 17, 2008 Permalink
So is there no such thing as a bad song?
F 12:49 pm on December 17, 2008 Permalink
Is that really what you think I said? Or are you just trying to goad me into defining something I don’t want to?
D 1:28 pm on December 17, 2008 Permalink
I’m 102% earnest. It really seemed like you were leaning toward saying that goodness/badness is all subjective when it comes to rock-pop. Please do correct me if I’m wrong. Why Brandon Flowers and not Britney?
F 1:46 pm on December 17, 2008 Permalink
Is goodness/badness all subjective? No.
Why Brandon Flowers and not Britney? Because I enjoy listening to the former and not the latter. It’s as simple as that.
I don’t want to suggest any lines between good and bad in rock-pop music. I just don’t know where those lines would be. You like The Decemberists, while I think that they’re just a bunch of whiney drunkards. I like The Killers, while you and Austin both find them nauseating.
Is one of us really right or wrong in our preferences?
D 1:58 pm on December 17, 2008 Permalink
I agree completely about preference.
I’m also interested in making a distinction between enjoyment and appreciation. I enjoy Coldplay. I cannot appreciate them much anymore. I appreciate Ingmar Bergman. I have to work to enjoy him.
One last final thought, sparked by the comment of the cute redhead above (no, not you, Austin)… when I was a kid, I hated certain foods that I now enjoy. Tomatoes, artichokes, coffee. Everyone around me told me that these things were amazingly good. And over many years, the things I was told to appreciate became things that I enjoyed. Not always (I still don’t like bananas). But more often than not, if I knew that something was worth appreciating, I eventually came around to enjoying it, too. That whole mysterious “acquired taste” phenomenon.
Maybe it works in reverse, too?
F 2:09 pm on December 17, 2008 Permalink
I can definitely flow with a distinction between appreciation and enjoyment. However, I am still wary of saying, “This needs to be appreciated by everyone!”
Further, while I understand the need to appreciate certain things because they’re important, I don’t know that I’d be willing to apply such criticism to the realm of rock-pop music. It’s too new, too young, and quite frankly, it’s taken way too seriously.
Appreciation is good. Appreciation is even important. But I don’t think we’re called to appreciate without enjoyment, and I suspect that too many critics (of books, movies, and music) have forgotten that stories and songs are designed to be enjoyed. And that’s really all I’m trying to recapture when I sing along with Brandon Flowers.
C 12:57 pm on December 19, 2008 Permalink
I think the comparison between food and music is interesting.
Since I reached that age when a lot of my friends turned hipster and became insufferable, I’ve judged music based on two components: complexity and cohesiveness. The quantities are easy to confuse, and this is where I think the comparison to food is apt.
Davey’s tiny, misguided childhood palate confused complexity with incoherence, mostly because it didn’t have the sophistication to distinguish and order the different components of food. He would concentrate on the most prominent aspect of the food – interesting texture, an aggressive acid profile – and ignore the more subtle qualities. Kids are like that – they hate crust on bread, skin on fruit, and spice. Oppositely some young-buck chef may confuse complexity with actual coherence, substituting raw technique or exoticism for the more elusive qualities of elegance and harmony.
So it is for music.
As I think about it, the necessary factor is coherence, and complexity is merely an enhancing element that can be easily abused. Frank appears to be arguing that The Killers lack complexity – they settle for a hook when they should write a theme, they settle for a limerick when they should write a sonnet – but the coherence is there an he finds it enjoyable. This is fine. Char and salt are all you need for a good steak; macaroni and fake yellow cheese can sometimes really hit the spot. Ode to Joy, one of the simplest melodies of Western Tradition, happens to also be one of the most enduring.
The problem is, as complexity decreases, personal taste is given a much greater role in judgment. If you don’t care much for beef, a steak isn’t your thing; however, a hearty stew with beef as a component may do just fine. We may here disagree about The Killers, but more complex music – say, from the Classical tradition – is much more difficult to argue about. This is because once we break down the music (or food) into its component parts, we appreciate the process by which those parts are assembled in the first place. If we dislike one particular element, there are others to balance or even elevate what offends our tastes.
An elitist appreciates complexity but not art; a boor craves coherence but neither discipline nor skill. A wise man once told me that a gentleman appreciates the finer things of life but can still enjoy the baser things. I think that the key is to appreciate and recognize coherence and constantly strive to improve your discernment of complexity.
I think it’s better to be a boor who wishes to improve himself than an elitist who thinks he already has.
On an unrelated note, I like The Killers just fine. Also, Davey doesn’t like kittens, so even in an argument over taste, I think he loses all credibility from the first.
D 1:47 pm on December 19, 2008 Permalink
Kittens aren’t complex enough. Duh.
C 3:00 pm on December 19, 2008 Permalink
D: Thank you for your thorough, thoughtful, substantive and – certainly! – complex response.
D 3:13 pm on December 19, 2008 Permalink
C: I was agreeing 110% with your lengthy comment, all the way up until the kitten bit. It was a bit like listening to any given song on Hail to the Thief. Beauty transmogrified into the most inexplicable nonsense.
Kittens??? Why does no one else see them for the atomic-malicious creatures they are?