Music Review: The new singles from The Killers & Green Day

- by Ninja Ross, 2 August 2012

Two bands I really like and respect have released a single each in recent weeks and, despite my obvious lack of music knowledge, I’m going to attempt to review both singles. Bear in mind that while I’m incredibly awesome and super cool, music is not my strong point. Love listening to it, but I just don’t know what I’m talking about!

"OH LOVE" - GREEN DAY

Even a musical dunce like myself can tell this isn’t a technical masterpiece. It’s honestly all the same from the disjointed guitar intro to the... disjointed guitar outro.

It seems to me like Billy Joe, the lead singer, isn’t really interested. His voice sounds forced and lazy which matches the rest of the song a little too well, giving the whole song a very bored feel. I’m finding it difficult to find anything else to say about the song. It’s not even all that fun.

I know, Green Day are Punk-Rock and therefore like to keep things simple but throughout their career, they’ve demonstrated their ability to create catchy, memorable songs. When I Come Around, Basket Case, American Idiot, Longview and Boulevard of Broken Dreams are just some great examples of their ability to use the simple Punk style to create fantastic songs.

They failed here, though. And since the idea behind this single is to show how great their new album will be, I don’t hold out much hope for said album - Uno. Or for the following two in their planned trilogy - Dos and Tres.

To be honest, though, this is just continuing a trend that started with 21st Century Breakdown. That album took every aspect of American Idiot and just tried to duplicate it, which misses the point of the American Idiot album in the first place. American Idiot was new. Everything since then is not new, it just follows the exact same formula that helped them become so successful with American Idiot.

"RUNAWAYS" - THE KILLERS

This one’s better, even if it sounds like it should have been on Brandon Flower’s solo album - Flamingo. It’s not exactly The Killers but it is nice to have them back together.

The intro sounds almost exactly like Crossfire and that’s not a bad thing. Both of these songs have a great build up that grabs your attention, as if to say “Stick around, this shit’s gonna get epic.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t really get “epic” it just gets louder.

The song does have a fantastic chorus that rings through the air, urging you to sing along but that’s pretty much all it has going for it besides the intro. Brandon Flowers is on top form, to be fair. At least his voice is. The band’s creativity seems to have been misplaced.

The “Country style Power Ballad with synths” style was great with Read My Mind and When She Was Young and many of the songs on Sam’s Town and Flamingo but, since The Killer’s have proven to be a band with an intense love for what they do and the ability to keep things diverse, I expected so much more! Day and Age was a soft funky disco album, so it’s not much of a stretch for them to change things up a bit, rather than relying on the same aspects of their music that made them successful.

Maybe I’m just too cynical but these songs fail to have an impact on my ever so sexy and sensitive ears. When listening to them, I don’t even notice when they finish and I honestly can’t remember any of the lyrics.
Both bands have forsaken creativity for a safe bet, copying what made their recent successes and hoping people will love the new one just as much.

Out of the two, however, Runaways is the better song and Battle Born, their forthcoming album, is an album I still look forward to. Green Day, not so much.

__________________________________________________________________
Ninja Ross is running Trash Mutant solo this week.
Find out what's that all about by reading this announcement!

Tagged: music, Reviews.

blog comments powered by Disqus

---

Follow @TrashMutant