I'll be honest. I really dug several parts of Hot Fuss and "When You Were Young" from Sam's Town. I was pretty interested in checking out this record, if only to see a little further into the mind of B Flow. Rather than give The Killers' b-sides collection a legitimate record a proper review, I'll give a track-by-track run-through, which I think fits this hodgepodge pretty well.
1. "Tranquilize"
An attempt to reconcile the Ian Curtis/Robert Smith and Bruce Springsteen/Tom Petty feel of their two records, a la "When You Were Young", unfortunately using the worst elements of each. A strange sample of children chanting comes in the middle. In possibly the worst mismatch of talent and scope in years, Lou Reed shows up toward the end, bringing home the chorus one last time, presumably meaning to shoot it.
2. "Shadowplay"
Why must Brandon Flowers continue to deface excellent music? Ian Curtis spins. Who knows, though? Maybe the soccer moms and sorority girls buying this record will get turned on to Joy Division.
3. "All the Pretty Faces"
I've had a live bootleg of this song for a while now and actually like it quite a bit. Sort of New Prog-y in a way. The song in general fits Brandon Flowers' voice rather well.
4. "Leave the Bourbon on the Shelf"
Very transparently a cast-off from Sam's Town, it bets everything on a PG-13 reference rather than any kind of musicality, much like that "Uncle Johnny did cocaine" song.
5. "Sweet Talk"
I suppose this is pretty decent. Possibly better than some bits of Hot Fuss, making it somewhat better than anything from The Bravery or Kaiser Chiefs.
6. "Under the Gun"
This appeared on the special edition of Hot Fuss. That may be the most noteworthy thing about it.
7. "Where the White Boys Dance"
This is completely nonsensical.
8. "Show You How"
Flowers filtered through an old-timey filter is pretty disgraceful. Even from the most sophomoric of bands, this is getting pretty sophomoric.
9. "Move Away"
From the Spiderman 3 soundtrack. An excellent illustration of how The Killers, having reached the limit of their ability and creativity in a particular genre, move on to another. Still, this isn't too bad.
10. "Glamourous Indie Rock and Roll"
Another song from the limited edition of Hot Fuss. I can't really parse what he's trying to say about indie music here. I remember live, Flowers threw in "Fuck the Beatles" right before the "It's indie rock and roll for me" hook. The mix of irony and incompetence here is mind-boggling. The lyrics make no sense, there are so many disparate musical elements, I just have no idea.
11. "Who Let You Go"
This is one of the older songs on here, I think. It's kind of refreshing, given the reduction in reverb on the vocals and double-tracking on the guitar. The lyrics are simple, but at least they're coherent. The band seem to know their strengths here.
12. "The Ballad of Michael Valentine"
The final track from the special ed Hot Fuss, it seems to presage the garbage to come on Sam's Town in terms of the story song kind of thing.
13. "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town"
A faithful enough cover of a classic song, smacking a bit of political content, given our current "Asian war". Very nice and subtle, actually. I quite like this.
14. "Daddy's Eyes"
Seriously?
15. "Sam's Town (Abbey Road)"
Presumably cutting a song at Abbey Road lends more cred to a mediocre band. Instead, replacing rock instruments with orchestra in a pretty bad song just exposes the weakness of the lyrics and Flowers' voice.
16. "Romeo and Juliet (Abbey Road)"
Such a string of cliches, lyrically and musically. Possibly the worst vocal performance from a Top 40 band ever.
17. "Mr. Brightside (Thin White Duke)"
Taking a song with roughly 45 seconds of good ideas and stretching it to almost 9 minutes cannot be a good idea.
"Ruby", "Who Let You Go", and "All the Pretty Faces" really are excellent cuts, especially for the most casual of Killers listeners. All three have been around for a while, though. Sawdust appears to be commercialism beyond anything The Killers have tried thus far, even considering bringing in Tim Burton for that one video. Overall, really awful, but check those songs out, especially if you can get the bootleg of "Pretty Faces" with Brandon Flowers chatting at the beginning.
(3.0/10.0)
-RJR
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