Wonderful Wonderful

Wonderful Wonderful is the fifth studio album by American rock band The Killers. It was released on September 22, 2017, by Island Records. It is their first studio album in five years, since Battle Born (2012), and their fifth consecutive studio album to top the UK Albums chart.
Brandon Flowers revealed in May 2015 that he and guitarist Dave Keuning were exchanging ideas for The Killers' fifth studio album. The four members reconvened in October 2015, a few months earlier than originally planned. The band began working on the album at their own Battle Born Studios and also rented houses in Joshua Tree National Park and San Diego. They briefly recorded with Ryan Tedder and other producers in Los Angeles before beginning to work with Jacknife Lee, who had been recommended to them by U2 frontman Bono. Lee worked with the band between September 2016 and May 2017 at his home studio in Topanga, California and at National SouthWestern Recording studios in Las Vegas, Nevada. Lee produced all tracks on the album alongside The Killers, with additional production by Erol Alkan on "The Man" and Stuart Price on "Out of My Mind".
In May 2016, it was announced that bassist Mark Stoermer was to take an extended break from touring with the band. However, he continued work on the album, forging many of the tracks alongside Flowers. "He stopped touring with us and it ended up being a blessing for the band. He was much more eager to go to the studio, he felt like he had a monkey off his back, he really contributed a lot to this record."
After celebrating the 10th anniversary of their second album Sam's Town by holding a few concerts, Flowers realized they wanted to make an actual record and not just "slap a bunch of songs together". He stated Wonderful Wonderful is the closest thing they have done to their 2006 album. According to him, the idea for the title of the album came when he was in the desert and saw a storm coming: "I thought 'wonderful, wonderful' and I was able to use it in a song that I wrote with Mark, our bass player, and it ended being an important part of the record."
The Killers enlisted Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits for a guitar part on "Have All the Songs Been Written?". Australian musician Alex Cameron contributed lyrics to some tracks, including "Run for Cover", which was originally written for the band's third studio album, Day & Age (2008).
Music and lyrics
Lyrically, the album is about what it means to be a man, as Flowers revealed on a interview with Entertainment Weekly: "In your head it's about being tough and bringing home the bacon, but what I've come to find is it's really more about empathy and compassion." He described how one of the songs "Tyson vs. Douglas" was inspired by the 1990 boxing match between Mike Tyson and Buster Douglas, where he explores what it's like to watch a hero fall. For NME Magazine, Flowers shared that the lyrics of the album are "the most personal and bare" that he has ever been: "I'm looking in the mirror on this record and focusing a lot on my own personal experiences. Instead of just drawing upon all these experiences and maybe using them in other songs, I am going straight for it with this and singing about my life and my family and that's something different for me." The track "Rut" was inspired by the struggle of Flowers' wife Tana with PTSD. He said: "Usually I feel protective of her but I decided to take it head on. So 'Rut' is about her submitting to it. That doesn't mean that she's gonna let it beat her, but rather that she's gonna finally acknowledge that it's there and promise to break this cycle." Flowers also added that putting his wife's battle into a song helped him understand better what she is going through. "Have All the Songs Been Written?" was originally the subject line of an email Brandon Flowers sent to Bono, in the midst of a bout of writer's block, before the latter suggested it would make an excellent song title.