Who can believe it’s been a whole 12 years since The Killers’ Day & Age album was brought into the world?
The Killers’ third studio album, Day & Age comprises of 12 tracks, featuring a handful of anthem-level songs including, ‘A Dustland Fairytale’, ‘Spaceman’, ‘Human’ and more.
It may not have been as transcendent as their breakout album, Hot Fuss, but it was definitely brought into the world in a truly poignant year of both the 2000s and in the world of music. After all, 2008 was also the year of Cut Copy’s In Ghost Colours, Vampire Weekend’s eponymous album, Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreaks and The Kings of Leon’s, Only By The Night.
Looking back on Pitchfork’s Day & Age review from 2008 is like tapping into a time capsule shelving away simpler times. “After the unlearned pop bent of Hot Fuss and the clichéd strained seriousness of Sam’s Town, The Killers return with a third album that aims to split the difference between its predecessors.”
While they may have been certain about that, they were just as unsure about that one ambiguous lyric in ‘Human’ then, as we are now. Dubbed a “grammatically dubious query” by Pitchfork in their album review, they wondered if Flowers was asking the world, “Are we denser?”
One month after the single dropped, Flowers told Rolling Stone that he was frustrated by fans being frustrated with the lyrics.
He opened up to Rolling Stone, saying, “I really care what people think but people don’t seem to understand ‘Human’. They think it’s nonsense. But I was aching over those lyrics for a very long time to get them right.”
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As it turns out, that one ambiguous lyric was inspired by a quote from former Rolling Stone contributor, Hunter S. Thompson. The quote being, ‘We’re raising a generation of dancers.”
Flowers went on to explain, “ I guess it bothers people that it’s not grammatically correct, but I think I’m allowed to do whatever I want.”
Watch The Killers’ music video for ‘Human’.
