“The Man”

For a minute there in the mid-2000s, Brandon Flowers was the finest shit-stirrer we had. Fresh off the global domination of the Killers’ debut album, he was unafraid to pop off in the press, inciting nascent blog beef with everyone from Fall Out Boy, to Green Day, to indie TMZ “Memba Thems” the Bravery. “Emo, pop-punk—whatever you want to call it—is dangerous,” he once claimed, surveying the swoop-haired masses. “There’s a creature inside me that wants to beat all those bands to death.” The devout Mormon and reportedly awkward dude who never drank or drugged too much even at the height of his fame was doing his best to emulate the rock’n’rollers he grew up reading about in NME, and the bad-boy guise didn’t stick. He soon apologized for all those blood-dripping pull quotes, and he’s generally been a respectful rock star ever since. But on “The Man,” the 35-year-old father of three resurrects—and sends up—his previous swaggering self.

Over shiny, strutting funk descended from James Brown’s ’80s anthem “Living in America,” Flowers adjusts his balls to the point of ridiculousness. By the time he declares, “Baby I’m gifted, you see what I mean/USDA CERTI-FIED LEAN!” you can’t help but laugh. The song is called “The Man,” but its ideas of manliness are nothing but boyish—a point made explicit on the single’s cover art, which stars Flowers’ son Henry drowning in what looks like his dad’s leather jacket. As American masculinity continues to evolve—and threatens to fall back on ugly old norms—the Killers try to have it both ways here, poking fun at dick-swinging supremacy while serving up something that could reasonably soundtrack a rough-and-dusted pickup truck commercial. It’s like a particularly phallic ink blot—look long and hard enough, and you’ll see what you want to see.