Record Time is a recurring feature written by Flip Rushmore's Alex Smith. Comment with your favorite memories of Begin to Hope at the bottom of the story, and check out Flip Rushmore's latest release on Bandcamp.

​My first "serious" relationship began when I was 16. And some of my favorite memories from that time were long drives soundtracked by the stereo in her hand-me-down Ford Taurus. Her older sister had moved out east, but had thankfully left behind a CD case with dozens of pop and alternative albums that I’d never heard before. At the time, I was in the midst of an exhilarating Wikipedia-and-Limewire crash course in rock history. I was the oldest in my family, so the Internet served as the cool sibling who told you how good Kid A was (or, at the very least, gave you their copy of Enema of the State).

​Record Time is a recurring feature written by Flip Rushmore's Alex Smith. Comment with your favorite memories of Hot Fuss at the bottom of the story, and check out Flip Rushmore's latest release on Bandcamp.

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In music, the early bird does not usually get the worm.

​A scene takes time to manifest itself in the public consciousness, and the bands making the best music, in, say, 2001, are not the bands who are leading the charge in, say, 2004. That’s a lifetime for a certain “sound,” and The Killers' Hot Fuss is the natural grandchild or great-grandchild—with an extra touch of flamboyance from three time zones away—of The Strokes’ Is This It. The first demo of “Mr. Brightside” might as well have been a B-side from Room on Fire.