This seems to apply to the Killers Hot Fuss album. Perhaps we didn't realize it at the time, but the first Killer's record seems to capture a unique chapter in the American experience, one that now feels like ancient history. It seems to capture a brief reprieve from the heaviness of the post 9/11 world, a brief moment when many of us seemed to imagine "everything" was "going to be alright."
Yes, I know--everything wasn't going to be alright, and some of us were hip to that reality. But even for those of a bit more cynical, unhappy with the Iraq War, the Bush Administration, the possibility that humanity had irreversibly altered the climate, there was sense that the worst was behind us, after all, how much worse could it get?
It did get worse of course: as the year progressed, we became aware of the atrocities committed at Abu Ghraib, we witnessed more and more Iraqi citizens dying in the marketplaces and cafes, and we came to recognize, as the Democratic primary season came to an end, that our hopes for change rested with that no-talent-ass-clown John Kerry. Things could get worse indeed.
Into our cultural ambivalence walked the Killers, a band, appropriately, from Las Vegas, who reminded us of youthful naiveté , of the 80s, of a souped up Duran Duran. We'd had enough of Toby Keith's post-9/11 jingoism, or Bruce Springsteen's melancholy. Give us an upbeat song about obsession we can dance to.
An album like this couldn't work now; sales of more recent Killers albums seem to prove that. The culmination of two wars, an economic crises, the failure of the political system have left a palpable heaviness on the American psych. Will anyone be able to capture this heaviness in the same way the Killers captured its opposite? Is there a Revolver out there waiting to happen? It'll take a heavy record to reflect the gravity of these times.
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