Released: December 8
Celebrating 20 years of hits, The Killers collect 20 singles from the past two decades on their latest compilation release.
The band’s ‘Rebel Diamonds’ tracks their history in chronology, launching with Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine, the opening track from their debut album, ‘Hot Fuss’ (2004), and is their first album of the sort since 2013’s ‘Direct Hits’.
“See it’s been said that what’s remembered lives,” says frontman Brandon Flowers of the record, “and we’ve racked up stadiums full of memories the past twenty years, enough to fill lifetimes. Twenty songs for twenty years – Rebel Diamonds.”
Mr Brightside, the song that started it all, is one of several mega-hits on the LP, which also features Somebody Told Me, Human and Runaways, among tracks from the band’s seven UK chart-topping albums.
Proving them to be a prolific outfit, just over half of the songs were around the last time the group put out a best-of album, while the other half of the collection is lifted from the more-recent ‘Wonderful Wonderful’ (2017), ‘Imploding The Mirage’ (2020) and ‘Pressure Machine’ (2021), along with last year’s Boy and the summer single, Your Side Of Town.
But with only one previously-unreleased song on the LP – presumably from sessions for the band’s scrapped eighth album – it makes for an offering that, although packed with hits, has few additional selling points.
In an era where music’s never been so accessible, the traditional greatest hits format has been overtaken by Spotify playlists, with artists relying on added perks such as additional content and bonus rarities to bolster their offerings.
Although the anthemic Spirit is a neat touch, it’s not quite enough to redeem ‘Rebel Diamonds’, which comes across more as a substitute for the record that fell through than a wholehearted celebration of the group’s success to date.
