Reception
The song received positive reviews from contemporary critics. An interview in The Observer newspaper stated that the track "is a cross between New Order and Bruce Springsteen - that should please fans of 'Mr. Brightside'." Chris Williams of Billboard gave a positive review, echoing The Observer's description of "merging a Boss-like melody over a New Order-injected rave-up." He also praised the song for "stretching the soundscape of alternative rock, which has increasingly become difficult to differentiate between mainstream rock". Music Radar complimented the song in their review of Day & Age, saying "A gentle, phased, clicky guitar riff opens this gorgeous nod to the gentle side of '80s new wave." Caryn Ganz with Rolling Stone gave the tune three-and-a-half stars, calling it "delicious." "Human" was voted the Best Song of 2008 by the readers of Rolling Stone.
In 2010, a vote by listeners to UK radio station XFM polled the song at #97 in their poll of the Top 1,000 Song of All Time. In December 2009 it was voted the 25th Best Song Of The Decade by listeners of UK music station Absolute Radio. In October 2011, NME placed it at number 144 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years". In 2012 BBC Radio 1 announced it was the 39th most downloaded song of all time (in the UK).
Read more about this topic: Human (The Killers Song)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
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“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)