Here’s a short story about a band - full of holes, innuendo, half-truths and ramblings from a madman.
Love them or hate them you can’t deny the meteoric rise of KINGS OF LEON over the last 10 or so years.
The guys have walked the line of a well structured career through their times initially finding success in the outer reaches of rock n roll and slowly moving themselves, album by album, into the stadium hearts and minds of young teenage girls, commercial pop radio DJ’s and middle America.
I loved KOL, I was introduced to them by some savvy music loving friends (you know who you are) and I immediately fell in love with their balls out, smoky bar, raw southern rock sound.
The Brothers and cousin FOLLOWILL picked up a nod from ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE when their debut EP HOLY ROLLER NOVACAINE (2002) received 4/5 stars, no doubt with a little help from their record label RCA.
Interestingly the B-side WICKER CHAIR was about ‘Alcholism a little bit…and losing it and kinda not realising it.” (This will make sense a little later on in the piece).
KINGS OF LEON released YOUTH AND YOUNG MANHOOD (2003) to rapturous applause in the UK with NME hailing it as ‘One of the best debut albums of the last 10 years.’ The album was arguably most successful in AUSTRALIA earning triple platinum status.
Album after album the guys changed their look and style of music edging closer to how we see and hear KINGS OF LEON today.
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| Youth and Young Manhood |
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| Aha Shake Heart Break |
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| Because of The Times |
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| Only By The Night |
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| Come Around Sundown |
And album after album I felt that their balls out, smoky bar, raw southern rock was slipping away. As a band you need to progress and build on what you have done, otherwise you fall into the ‘one trick pony’ category.
These guys have built their sound and fan base album after album, tour after tour, to an astounding level which the nay-sayers see as ‘selling out’, but in my opinion if I made the decision to be a career musician why would you not want to enjoy the benefits of the success that you know you can reach?
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| Stadium Rock Bitches |
Jump forward past AHA SHAKE HEARTBREAK (2004) to BECAUSE OF THE TIMES (2007) and you will see the guys continued on their musical warpath to success as well as cop a bunch of criticism from some major music media players with STYLUS MAGAZINE saying ‘If they wanted us to take them serious (sic) this time around, they’d at least try to be right honest (sic) about their ascent into minor celebrity and not keep on with the yokel facade. Without cautionary yarns regarding life on the tour bus or banging supermodels, the bright eyed, legs-stretched mood of the music rings just as hollow.” The burn didn’t end there with PITCHFORK concluding that ‘BECAUSE OF THE TIMES sound[s] suspiciously like a counter attack on womankind, launched from somewhere in the mid 1990’s, deep inside a bruised, stadium rock ego.’
I’m not sure I understand the point or general reasoning behind either comment by STYLUS or PITCHFORK, but needless to say STYLUS MAGAZINE shut down publishing soon after. Check out the butcher review from STYLUS and PITCHFORK
Reading the articles, as much as I dislike their ridiculously negative attitude towards the album, I can’t help but agree with their foresight in seeing KINGS OF LEON morphing into a stadium rock band borrowing signature song writing aspects of U2. But if you put that aside your left with two (maybe) fat idiots sitting behind their computers with earphones inserted into their anuses listening to music by a group of guys that are well on their way to conquering the world. The guy who wrote the review for STYLUS wasn’t writing for them much longer, and the dude who bagged them from PITCHFORK is currently masturbating to the idea that he was into bands so much before anyone else was, to the point that they didn’t even exist.
Anywho, the KOL bag continues to grow fan by fan, minute by minute, commercial radio by commercial radio until their stomping rise meets the goal that they were perhaps searching for from the beginning – recognition back home in the U S of A.
ONLY BY THE NIGHT reached #4 on the US Billboard charts along with getting 4 singles into the the largest music poll in the world, AUSTRALIA’s own TRIPLE J HOTTEST 100.
ONLY BY THE NIGHT (2010) saw KOL demolishing charts on every corner of the globe on the back of their first single RADIOACTIVE.
With growing success seems to come excess and with mounting pressure and a growing tour schedule the cracks that were starting to show reached a sour point on 29th of July 2011 with the KINGS OF LEON having to cancel their DALLAS, TEXAS show for reasons that people are either describing as alcohol related, tension amongst the brothers/cousin, vocal exhaustion or heat exhaustion. The band announced on 1st of August 2011 that the rest of their US tour was cancelled. Whatever it was, heaps of people were pissed off and you can check out the footage below. A bloke from the Tele in the UK had this to say.
Whatever you want to say, love them or hate them you can’t deny the meteoric rise of KINGS OF LEON.
