Meg Washington Releases The Killers' Cover Album

Meg Washington has released a surprise album, and it's packed with covers of songs you know very well. The Aussie musician has put her own minimalist spin on Hot Fuss, the debut studio album by The Killers. That's right, Washington sings Mr Brightside, Somebody Told Me, Smile Like You Mean It, and the rest.

Produced by Danny Harley (The Kite String Tangle), Meg's take on Hot Fuss is her first release under her own label, Batflower Records, in partnership with French distributor Believe.

Washington has also gifted us a handwritten letter about her motivations behind covering Hot Fuss. "I've always loved this album," she begins before explaining why she connects with the record so profoundly. "To me, it seems to capture the sound of yearning, the glamour and trash of what it feels like to be young, the intoxicating web of the scene, the madness of passion-hymns of electricity, of youth-impossibly delivered with both an ironic sneer and gothic sincerity."

She adds that Brandon Flowers' lyrics feel like poetry, and with Washington's subtle piano arrangements and stunning vocal flourishes, Hot Fuss has never sounded so romantic. "As a songwriter, I always admired the laziness of the vocal melodies... and the effortless cool of Brandon Flowers’ delivery, part crooning, part keening, always gliding over the pounding surf of the instruments."

She continues, "I’ve long cited Hot Fuss as a desert island record," but examining the album is something she's only recently done. "I started pulling the songs apart to find their structure, and that’s when I felt something click. The music came with a completely different sensation...of space, of stillness, of peaceful melancholy, and with the lyrics uncluttered, I found deeper poetry still.

"It became a great meditation, the study of a record I thought I already knew, the creation of a new context for it." All These Things I've Said shines exceptionally bright through the deconstructive process she undertook. 

"To me, it is a jumbled poem of insecurity and ambition, the dichotomous reality of practising art in a capitalistic world. I found meaning and hope in the repetition of the final line: I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier - it feels like a prayer to the future," Washington concludes. 

Washington recently created the score for the second series of the ABC TV comedy Fisk.  

Catching up with The Music, Meg Washington told us why working on Fisk was an immediate "yes."

"Having never scored a comedy and already being a Fisk fan, it was an easy yes to work on the project," she says. "I immediately thought of treating the music like a big scribble because that's how Helen Tudor-Fisk's character feels to me… slightly chaotic, loopy. That's what I pitched to Kitty when we first spoke about it, and she liked it, so we went from there."

Meanwhile, The Killers will play a special one-off concert after midnight at Liberty Hall, Entertainment Quarter, Moore Park on Monday, 19 December - straight after their Sydney show at Qudos Bank Arena on Sunday night. General public tickets go on sale tomorrow, 16 December, at noon. Find tickets here. 

Stream Meg Washington's Hot Fuss here.