Human (The Killers song)

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Human
The killers
publication September 22, 2008
length 4:04
Genre (s) Synth pop
Author (s) Brandon Flowers , Dave Keuning , Mark Stoermer, Ronnie Vannucci
Producer (s) Stuart Price , The Killers
Publisher (s) Iceland
album Day & Age
Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
Human
  DE 4th 07/11/2008 (42 weeks)
  AT 6th 11/21/2008 (34 weeks)
  CH 7th 10/26/2008 (37 weeks)
  UK 3 11/22/2008 (55 weeks)
  US 32 October 18, 2008 (20 weeks)

Human is a song by the American rock band The Killers . It was released as the first single from their studio album Day & Age (2009).

Human received mostly positive reviews from music critics who particularly praised the composition , musical influences, and production . It was the third song by the band that was able to place in the top 5 of the British music charts .

background

In an interview with Rolling Stone , Brandon Flowers described Human as a song in which influences from Johnny Cash would meet those of the Pet Shop Boys . Flowers stated that the song was created while working on her studio album Stardust and should actually have been released on it. Until its appearance on Day & Age , however, it had only changed slightly.

The cover of the single is a portrait of the band's guitarist , Dave Keuning, one of the four portraits drawn by Paul Normansell when the album was released.

reception

The song has received overwhelmingly positive reviews from music critics. An article in The Observer newspaper discussed it as "a mix of New Order and Bruce Springsteen ". Chris Williams of the magazine Billboard judged positively and joined the opinion of The Observer to the melody resembles the style of Springsteen. He also praised the song for expanding the sound of alternative rock , which is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from the mainstream . With this incredible, heartwarming song, The Killers would have gone down in music history, maybe even human history. Music Radar praised the song in their review of Day & Age . Rolling Stone's Caryn Ganz gave the melody three and a half stars and called it "delicious".

In 2010, the song was voted 97th of the 1000 best songs of all time in a survey of listeners on the British radio station XFM . In December 2009, listeners to the British radio station Absolute Radio voted the title 25th among the best songs of the decade. In October 2011, the British music magazine New Musical Express placed the song at number 144 on their list of "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years".

Music and lyrics

To this day, the line “Are we human, or are we dancer?” In the chorus of the song is widely discussed due to the grammatical error it contains . On the internet the discussion arose as to whether “dancer”, “dancers” or “denser” was the correct rendering of the text, a misunderstanding which triggered contradicting interpretations of the meaning of the text. The biography on the band's official website states that Flowers sings “Are we human, or are we dancer?”, The lyrics are inspired by a disdainful comment by Hunter S. Thompson , according to which America “a generation of dancers (dancers ) ”Would produce. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Flowers stated that he was irritated by the confusion about the lyrics and that fans were dissatisfied with the danceable beat of the song: “It should be a dance song, [the beat] adapts to the chorus ... If you can't bring that together, you're an idiot. I just don't understand why there is confusion about it. ” He also stated regarding the grammatical error:

"I guess it bothers people that it's not grammatically correct, but I think I'm allowed to do whatever I want."

"I suppose it bothers people that it's grammatically incorrect, but I think I can do what I want."

- Brandon Flowers : Rolling Stone Magazine

In 2014, the text was voted the strangest lyrics of all time (“Weirdest lyric of all time”) in a poll by the streaming service Blinkbox.

Music video

The music video for Human , directed by Danny Drysdale, was released in October 2008. It shows the band playing the song in Goblin Valley State Park , Utah . The portraits drawn by Paul Normansell are shown in the video when the band members hold them in front of their faces. Various animals are shown in the video, including a white tiger , an eagle and a puma . The video was found to be very similar to the concert film Live at Pompeii by the band Pink Floyd . The band plays in a desert landscape with various amplifiers and other stage equipment as a backdrop, and many of the camera settings are similar. The end of the video shows the band watching the sunset in the desert, which finally merges into the band's album cover, also drawn by Paul Normansell.

Trivia

The song was used by the Spanish television station Telecinco for the teaser of the final of the 2010 soccer World Cup.

As of October 25, 2008, the song has been available as downloadable content in the Guitar Hero World Tour video game .

The TV channel Sky used Human for an advertising campaign in 2009.

When the song was first released digitally, a hi-hat section was missing at the beginning.

Nik Kershaw has covered the song at some of his concerts since 2017.

Awards

Nominations

year Award category Result
2009 MuchMusic Video Awards Best Video International Group Nominated

Music sales

Cover versions

swell

  1. ↑ Chart sources: DE, AT, CH, US UK
  2. ↑ Human-The Killers . Billboard . October 4, 2008. Retrieved October 4, 2008.
  3. ↑ Ganz, Caryn (October 16, 2008), Human . Rolling Stone . (1063): 80
  4. ↑ The Top 1,000 Songs of All Time . XFM. December 24, 2010. Retrieved August 26, 2011.
  5. ↑ Human by The Killers . Song of the Decade. Archived from the original on August 15, 2012. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 11, 2010. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / songofthedecade.com
  6. ↑ 150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years . In: NME.COM . Retrieved May 3, 2015.
  7. ↑ Brandon Flowers Wound Up Over Misquoting of Killers' Human rollingstone.com, accessed May 2, 2015
  8. ↑ Vozick-Levinson, Simon (September 25, 2008), “Does the Killers' Human have the silliest lyric of the week?” EW.com. Retrieved January 27, 2009
  9. ↑ Spence, Darren (January 16, 2009), Chart Choice . Retrieved January 27, 2009
  10. ↑ The Killers official website @ islandrecords.com . Island Records . October 6, 2008. Retrieved October 6, 2008.
  11. ↑ Killers' Brandon Flowers stands behind Human chorus… . October 13, 2008. Retrieved November 6, 2011.
  12. ^ Hiatt, Brian (December 25, 2008), The Killers Inside ( Memento December 27, 2008 in the Internet Archive ). Rolling Stone (1068/1069): 78-81
  13. ↑ Brandon Flowers Wound Up Over Misquoting of Killers' “Human” ( Memento from April 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  14. ↑ What are the weirdest lyrics of all time? The Guardian, accessed May 2, 2015
  15. ↑ Music Video at 1:55, 1:59 and 2:03
  16. ↑ Music Video at 4:08
  17. ↑ Spanish TV advertisement for the 2010 FIFA Final with Human YouTube, accessed on May 2, 2015
  18. ↑ Sky advertising with Human YouTube, accessed on May 2, 2015
  19. ↑ a b c gold / platinum databases: DE UK US

Web links