As you stumble down the boulevard crying "Hosanna"

Continuing my trip back through the 2010 album charts.

12/09/10 : Flamingo - Brandon Flowers

We've met The Killers three times (and somewhat surprisingly, this is my most read album post - and I have absolutely no idea why) but we have yet to meet a Brandon solo effort.  Solo efforts from members of popular bands can have curious motivations - sometimes it's to show they don't need the band, sometimes it's to give them the opportunity to do something completely different and sometimes it's a chance to show off tracks rejected by the band (which have often been rejected for good reasons).  So, it will be interesting to see what we've got here...

A mix of all three maybe?  It's a bit of an odd one - the tracks are Killers-ish (but much more like their later stuff than Hot Fuss) and they're not terrible, but the style is a bit strange (Wikipedia describes is as "soft rock/country pop/synth rock" - does that help?).  At times he's sounding very Chris de Burgh and at other times he's a camp, falsetto Johnny Cash - I reckon if you played some tracks at half speed you'd end up with a decent Cash track.  I didn't hate it, but I don't quite know what to do with it or who'd like it - another one to file under "interesting" and never revisit.

So, obviously, we're at #1 in the charts this week with a new entry at the start of a twenty week run - it was way more successful than I imagined.  The rest of the top five are Katie Perry, The XX, Hurts (another new entry and I like this album a lot - check it out if you like an 80s sound, surprisingly it also features Kylie) and Eminem - that's quite an impressive mix of genres there.  And there's one more new entry in the top ten, Stone Sour (#6) who I know nothing about but if they're not heavy rock/metal, I'll be amazed (Wikipedia confirms I have no need to be amazed).

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on the album - it tells us it's very Vegas (Brandon's home town) heavy on the references including being named after Flamingo Road in the city.  It also tells me "Hard Enough" is a duet with Jenny Lewis (ex of Rilo Kiley - a band that, along with The Killers, I discovered at Glastonbury) - which surprises me because I like her voice, but I really didn't think it worked in tandem with Brandon's.  The critics were nice enough about it but didn't go overboard, although the guy from The Village Voice opined it was "a combination of Bono's brassiness, Morrissey's high drama, and Ian Curtis's spasmodic awkwardness" - none of whom came to mind in the slightest for me.  It did well enough globally, but only hit the top spot here, getting to #8 in the US.

"Customers also listened to" The Killers, Keuning (another Killer), Alex Cameron and The Airborne Toxic Event - who have a great name if nothing else.  I'm still unsure what I thought of this album - I can imagine it might be a grower with its singalong choruses, but it all just felt a bit off to me.

05/09/10 - Well done, but not for everyone
19/09/10 - Interesting, if not entirely enjoyable