James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 8: Hot Fuss

Day 8 of the 2021 A-Z Challenge and it already feels like this has been going on for far too long.

I’m very much enjoying the ‘listening to music’ bit of the challenge, but the writing about it has become a tad repetitive and frankly I get better blogging stats for my stupid haikus. But I’ve committed to this undertaking and I will see the journey through to its bitter end.

At least it, mostly, has a good soundtrack. Today we’re on ‘H’ and if ‘H’ is for ‘highlight’ then today’s album of choice just might be deserving of that accolade.

H is for Hot Fuss

When it comes to popular culture, Mrs Proclaims and I don’t always have the same views. There are movies and books which transcend our differing tastes but they tend to be the exceptions that prove the rule. We’re far more on the same page when it comes to music and there’s a fairly good chance if one of us likes a particular band then the other will probably be a fan too. However, while we do often enjoy the same genres of music, we differ in the level of enthusiasm we reserve for the acts we like. There is, however, one band that we love to the same unequivocal degree and that would be Las Vegas’ serial chart-choppers The Killers.

Although we still disagree about which is their best album, with my wife plumping for their sophomore effort Sam’s Town while I tend to go for their debut release, Hot Fuss.

As ever my choice is as much to do with nostalgia as anything else, and this album takes me back to a particularly grim temping job I had circa 2004, doing admin for an ineptly managed utilities company on a soulless industrial estate just outside of Cardiff. It was a fairly oppressive working environment for the most part, but we were allowed the small concession of having the radio on while we worked and one track always seemed to lift everyone’s mood. The song in question was Somebody Told Me which was the second single off the album. However, to play us out, I have to eschew that hit for the one that elevated them from being a band that I quite liked to being, quite probably, my favourite band of the noughties. And so here is the eternally uplifting Mr Brightside: