“The biggest impact one me”: The 1987 album that changed Brandon Flowers’ life
The Killers have always existed on a different side of culture from where they actually came from, formed in Las Vegas but claimed by the British indie boom of the early 2000s. Growing up, Brandon Flowers experienced a similar sort of societal displacement.
Although it seemed to happen out of nowhere, The Killers’ heavy influence on British culture was actually the result of a couple of obvious factors. The first was that, in the beginning, American labels were reluctant to embrace their music. This pushed them into the hands of British indie execs, who were more willing to push out ‘Mr Brightside’ and sit back to watch it become a prized national anthem.
The label that signed them, Lizard King Records, was a UK label, meaning that the band’s first taste of success happened a long way from home soil. But, in many ways, that also made sense, especially given the types of bands that the members, especially Flowers, had grown up admiring. Many of which weren’t exactly the American hero type that his community championed when he was younger.
While the “kids” he grew up around were into bands like Korn and Tool, Flowers was “on the other end of the spectrum”, relating more to the sounds of quintessential British rock and new wave bands like New Order, The Cure, and perhaps one of the most British of them all, The Smiths. He remained enchanted by this sort of music, even adjusting his singing style to sound like some of them, and pouring many of the same styles into his own material.
Hot Fuss, for example, was a not-so-subtle ode to all his British post-punk heroes, with songs like ‘Somebody Told Me’ and ‘All These Things That I’ve Done’ incorporating elements of pop-rock melodies and catchy hooks with both traditional and synthesised elements. If you look even closer, some of the songs even emulated the same innovative patterns established by bands like The Smiths, with ‘Jenny Was a Friend of Mine’ reframing a real murder story of Robert Chambers strangling Jennifer Levin in 1986.
Flowers was directly influenced by his beloved Morrissey when writing about the song. Part of the band’s ‘Murder Trilogy’, the song was written after Flowers heard Chambers utter the famed line in a questioning about why he would commit such a heinous act, and influenced by Morrissey’s lesser-known ‘Everyday Is Like Sunday’ B-side, ‘Sister I’m a Poet’.
Morrissey and The Smiths had already been in Flowers’ life for a while by that point, guiding his own personal journey by injecting gritty, macabre thoughts and experiences into melodic, upbeat arrangements. In fact, Morrissey’s maudlin presence is felt by Flowers anywhere he goes, even when there’s little to no connection whatsoever.
For instance, once, the band played a gig at Manchester Academy, which sits across the street from the church Morrissey sang about in ‘Vicar in a Tutu’, making Flowers feel like he himself had been a part of the song… Another time, he drove past a cemetery, wondering whether it was one of the immortalised cemeteries that also made their way into Morrissey’s lyrics.
There are many songs and lyrics that Flowers feels practically everywhere, each written in the lines of cities and streets as though Morrissey had dreamed them to life himself. However, when it comes to the ultimate pinnacle of Morrissey’s talents, Flowers claims that there’s only one song that sits above the rest: ‘You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby’, taken from the band’s 1987 compilation album, The World Won’t Listen.
Reflecting on this choice to Stereogum, Flowers said the record “had the biggest impact on me” and called ‘You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby’ “their best song”, noting, “It lit a fire in me when I heard it. I l loved it immediately.”
The song itself is lyrically pretty simple, but that’s also why it’s a favourite – it incorporates everything The Smiths became known for, with witty one-liners and a rhythmic groove that leaves you wondering if there’s some hidden deeper meaning beneath the surface.
