You have every right to be skeptical of Brandon Flowers‘ debut solo album Flamingo. When a lead singer splits from an established band or group, the resulting project can go one of two ways–sheer brilliance or utter disaster. Luckily, this one leans towards the former of the two options.
Left to his own devices, Flowers soars into exciting new territory. There’s a heavy classic rock influence throughout the entire set, more so than anything we’ve heard on his work with The Killers. You can hear echoes of David Bowie‘s Ziggy Stardust era on certain tracks, while the bounciest tune “Was It Something I Said?” could have been yanked directly from Billy Joel‘s repertoire.
Best of all, this isn’t an album by The Killers with Brandon Flowers’ name slapped onto it. The singer offers up entirely unique compositions, each radiating with an odd sense of familiarity. While he shouldn’t necessarily ditch the rest of the band for good, he’s definitely welcome to take a vacation whenever he wants.
– Dewitt
To listen to select tracks from this album, follow the JUMP:
Love these cuts and samples. Love Brandon Flowers. I definitely hear the Billy Joel in “Was It Something I Said?”, but I also hear Tom Petty, Van Morrison, Rik Ocasek, Bob Dylan, and a few other 70’s and 80’s icons as strong influences on this guy’s music. This is a definite “Buy” for me.
Beautiful songs. Remind me of the first Audioslave album, which I loved.
nice! thanks for the hint!
Wow! “Playing with Fire” gave me chills; what a fantastic piece of music. Flowers and The Killers have a new fan.
Still sounds like the killers…
this album sounds like bad songs from the early 80s! this guy and his ego are OVER.