Music / Day & Age

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Day & Age is the third studio album by American rock band The Killers, released on November 18, 2008 through Island Records.

Brandon Flowers described the album as the band's "most playful record". It received positive reviews from critics and did well on the charts, with "Human" going on to be one of the band's biggest songs.

Four singles were released with this album: "Human", "Spaceman", "The World We Live In" and "A Dustland Fairytale".

Tracklist:

1. "Losing Touch" (4:15)
2. "Human" (4:09)
3. "Spaceman" (4:43)
4. "Joy Ride" (3:33)
5. "A Dustland Fairytale" (3:45)
6. "This Is Your Life" (3:41)
7. "I Can't Stay" (3:06)
8. "Neon Tiger" (3:05)
9. "The World We Live In" (4:40)
10. "Goodnight, Travel Well" (6:51)

Are we human? Or are we troper?

• Album Title Drop: Inverted. The songs were written before the album was named, and the name was chosen in part because the band realized they'd used that phrase in two songs ("Neon Tiger" and "The World We Live In").
• Alien Abduction: "Spaceman". Amusingly, in an article about The Killers, Q Magazine had an interview with an expert on alleged real-world alien abductions, who was quite pissed that the song bore so little resemblance to the common alien-abduction claim.
• Design Student's Orgasm: The album cover is a mosaic deception of a landscape at night being set on fire.
• Epic Rocking:
  • Most of The Killers' tracks are short three to four minute radio ready songs... but "Joy Ride" is an exception. While the original album cut is a brisk 3:34 track, the extended "Joy Ride: Night Version" clocks in at 7:17 and was allegedly trimmed down from an epic more than 20 minutes long recording of the song which has yet to be publicly released.
  • Also from this album, the final track "Goodnight, Travel Well" clocks in at 6:51. Interestingly enough, the song has never been played live by the band.
• Face on the Cover: The covers for the singles of this album are pictures of the band members in the same mosaic artstyle for the album cover.
• Grief Song: "Goodnight, Travel Well" is dedicated to Dave Keuning's mother, who died of cancer.
• How Dad Met Mom: Brandon's parents as told in "A Dustland Fairytale".
• Longest Song Goes Last: "Goodnight, Travel Well" ends the album and is the longest at nearly 7 minutes.
• Police Brutality: In "This Is Your Life".
  The cops, they'll steal your dreams and they'll kill your prayers
• Sanity Slippage: "Losing Touch" seems to be this, although, for the most part, it's a fairly calm song compared to other examples of the trope.
• Shout-Out:
  • At their performance of "Human" at the EMA Awards, Brandon added in some lyrics from "Bring on the Dancing Horses" by Echo & the Bunnymen.
    Bring on the new Messiah
    Wherever he may roam
    First I'm gonna make it
    Then I'm gonna break it
    Till it falls apart
    Hating all the faking
    Shaking while I'm breaking
    Your brittle heart
  • The line "Are we human, or are we dancer" is a reference to Hunter S. Thompson, according to Brandon Flowers.

The unknown distance to the great beyond
Stares back at my grieving frame
To cast my shadow by the holy sun
My spirit moans with a sacred pain
And it's quiet now
The universe is standing still
There's nothing I can say
There's nothing we can do now
There's nothing I can say
There's nothing we can do now