For your pleasure

Singles roundup:

The Killers, "When We Were Young"

I like Brandon Flowers a lot. He wears bad makeup endearingly. He's a Mormon. He likes the Pet Shop Boys and loves Duran Duran; he even wrote a couple of numbers on the last album which approached their splendor. But more often than not his personality, parched vocals, the nasty metallic glaze of David Keuning's guitar, and a homoerotica he slathers like Dijon mustard on half-assed, unfinished songs (he's a straight boy who wants to assure the gay guy who hit on him that he's okay with it) reveal them to be the third-raters their critics are too quick to dismiss them as. The first single from the forthcoming Sam's Town is, like "Somebody Told Me," a good intention. It goes from verse to chorus too quickly or something; it's missing a bridge; the harmonies and Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me-era synths are mixed too low. The part about drinking the devil's water is cool. GRADE: B-

Kelis feat. Cee-lo, "Lil Star"

With a vocal lifted from the Roberta Flack school of black middle-class sophistication, Kelis aims for Mary J. Blige's patented I-am-a-soul-in-need narcissism racket. She succeeds where Blige fails, and not because she's a better singer, although God knows that Kelis' comparative underplaying makes Mary sound like a Gatling gun. The title's pun is less gruesome when you stop thinking about it ("There is nothing special about me/I am a just a little star" is the first line uttered by this would-be icon whose "Milkshake" was damn near inescapable in 2003). The state of R&B balladry is so dire that the tasteful production -- muted wah-wah, intro trumpets -- doesn't scream archly retro. Cee-lo, competing for the obtrusive-weirdo status that Ol' Dirty Bastard abdicated, handles chorus duties. Despite the Uncle Remus drawls he is, happily, more human than Kelis, mitigating the tune's egotistic humility. Use your imagination and picture a George Clinton guest appearance on Whitney's "The Greatest Love of All." GRADE: B+