Only By The Night

Irriterande

I'm not looking forward to this. Track 1 - It sounds like ZOO-era U2 with a shitty singer from a The Commitments tribute band. When will it end? There's still 60 seconds to go. Aargh. Track 2 - What was that album where I said it would sound amazing if you've never heard any other music before? That's what this is, again. The music is very simple, but not in a good way and the singer sucks. The guy from Terrorvision or Ugly Kid Joe were better and doing this sort of thing. I am reminded of U2 again by this track. God, it's boring. 40 seconds to go. They need to make all their songs 1 minute shorter is what I've learnt so far. Track 3 - "Yoo-ooh-ooh, my ass is on fire." Oh, no, I'm confusing it with something else. Again, it's amazing how simple these songs are. When did this come out? Do you remember the phrase "Landfill Indie"? I am suddenly reminded of that. Track 4 - Oh god, I forgot this one. "USE somebody". Again, so simple with weirdly unconvincing over-emoting vocals. Right. I don't know if I can do this whole album with out skipping. 1 minute 22 seconds to go. Oh god, this is so desperate to be arena rock. Ooh! A key change! It's over. Track 5 - skipping Track 6 - This sounds like modern country and western which is just simple rock with lyrical references to tractors and things. I suppose you want to make sure you get that Southern demographic. "Drinking Smoking." "Kerosene" Some slide guitar. But so simple still. Track 7 "She's only 17" Really? Is rock still doing that? (In 2008) Yeesh. skip skip skip. Yeah this is corporate bullshit. I can imagine tolerating it if it came on in a pub and you were a bit pissed. It's not as bad as Travis (but then what is?) so I am grudgingly giving it two stars. Or am I? Nah fuck it. GET FUCKED KINGS OF LEON!

I see why Use Somebody was the hit off this album, the rest is just meh.

I'm going to be charitable and say that at the time that this list was devised, Kings of Leon were breaking out and were considered a rising force in rock music. That's why so many of their albums are on this app. That said - this is pure dog ass, an embarrassing album.

You can fuck right off. This was the beginning of the end for KOL. The first 2 albums were great. Even the 3rd was very good. This was a wet blanket. Became inexplicably popular because people found the lyrics Sex on Fire so damn wonderful. It was a rip off of Dakota by Stereophonics when you break it down. Argh, I'm so full of hate for this album, because I used to love KOL and this was so shit. Use Somebody can fuck off and die. I'm genuinely angry that this is on here.

Idk, I hear a lot of empty earnestness. At times this album made me queasy. It feels manufactured for is time and over produced.

Not as bad as I figured considering how much I hate this band post their second record but also not good. And sometimes truly awful. Mostly it’s just boring, like the most soulless take on soulful rock ever.

Fuck kings of leon sex on fire är fine men resten är så lame, tråkigt och albumet låter som en tvättmedelsreklam

Sounds like the only thing that mattered was sounding good in a stadium - soaring, anthemic, monotonous structures, simple harmonies, slow builds. The songs are silly confections and instantly forgettable.

God no. Not my cup of tea at all. Sex on Fire can do one. Favourite tracks: no.

a bit bland. why is it on this list??

This is absolutely terrible. Corporate rock. If you took the vocals off you could use any of these tracks for a video your CEO shows you about the company’s fresh new direction before laying you off. Their first album was so good. It’s diabolical what happened to them. They should be jailed.

Boring and irritating at the same time. The singer’s intentional vocal fry and constant deep reverb on the guitar are just grating and get tired after the first song.

Utterly generic whiny-guy album of the 90’s. A genre that needs zero entries to this list.

If i could rate it less i would

This album epitomizes my criticism of this list. Just because an album had a few hits and was popular for a moment, does that make it an essential listen? What broader impact did Kings of Leon have on music, did they have any real impact at all? Overall an extremely forgettable album of boring pop-rock. Beyond that, the lyrics are cringe-inducing and awful. The entire song "17" written in 2008 should be a big enough red flag, but there are so many painfully unsexy attempts are risque lyrics. I end the review with one of those "Home-boy's so proud, He finally got the video proof The night vision shows, She was only ducking the truth It's heavy, I know The black cat with the gift down below A choke and a gag, She spit up an' came back for more, oh ahh ahh" ugh, gross. No one should come back to this album for more.

Boring really.

zzzzzzzz

Of all the albums in the history of music that made this list, I genuinely can't believe that this made it. Utter pish. It would probably sound fine in a car commercial but in no way should a band like this be on a list like this. The only positive I can give is that eventually it ended. Utter tosh, rubbish, boring

"Sex On Fire": Hum, really? To paraphrase Tony Soprano: "Cunnilingus and cheesy dad-rock played by pseudo-alternate rocker boys brought us to this." Unless the song is about blowjobs. At least if it's your thing. But I think lines such as "Soft lips are open" and "I could just taste it" make Mr. Followill's sexual preferences clear for the listener. As is that Rorschach blot of an album cover. Good for him. And good for his partner that night. "Use Somebody" is about hitting on girls in bars, it seems. Another universal theme, and another huge commercial hit by the band. Too bad the music is so damn bland and unimaginative. As it is is in *each and every* track of this record. Fittingly, Kings Of Leon's story is as boring and predictable as their songs and studio performances usually are. They went from a festival act playing the sort of soft garage rock that would be appreciated in bars in the American South, to then embrace their destiny as an arena-rock band following the footsteps of Bruce Springsteen, U2 and the Killers. Call that an upgrade if you will. Good for them as well. But not for listeners who wish to discover something more than by-the-numbers arrangements and easily-digestible--yet-totally-unmemorable--songwriting. You can sense in *Only By The Night* that the very competent Kings Of Leon go through the motions so that they could have their hits without taking any risks or following any sort of worthwhile creative spark. But can they have those, really? All of this feels very safe--lyrics alluding to oral sex and lewd attraction to 17-year-old girls notwithstanding. Honestly, I feel a little pity about the teary-eyed reviewers in here reminiscing about the good ol' days they had in high school or college dorms listening to this album (most of the positive reviews say that exact same thing). I'm probably 15 or 20 years older than they are, and yet I haven't fully embraced this dad-rock phase yet. And even if I had, it wouldn't be about bands painfully reenacting the more glorious times of past mainstream rock luminaries who were at least doing something fresh from their own vantage point. It seems fitting that the name of those brothers in the band is "Followill", since all they're happy to do is to follow a formula without adding anything personal that would be even remotely interesting. The fact that their fans can't come to terms with that idea is a tad bit frustrating, to be perfectly honest. If only they had listened to similar-sounding bands from that particular point in time that are at least displaying *real substance* in their music. I get that from their point of view, the songs of *Only By The Night* make a good soundtrack for road trips. But those rides would sound so much better with songs by The Walkmen, for instance. You see, I like my rock'n'roll with a minimum amount of danger, or at least urgency. I can't sense those connotations in the writing here, and I certainly can't sense them in Matthew Followill's over-affected whining. So I'm gonna file Kings Of Leon next to the Killers and The War On Drugs. Except that it's gonna be on an even lower shelf than those two acts. My overall take about the presence of *Only By The Night* in such a list is that something was dead wrong about mainstream pop-rock tastes from the middle-naughts to the middle-2010s. Fortunately, that time is over now. Now I can smirk at the new dad-rockers with kids that are half their age (and even far younger than I am myself). Oh, and you might tell me that other old and very predictable story that the real problem is that Kings Of Leon had sold out on commercialism with this album, yet that the ones before it are good... Well, I'm also very sorry: I've browsed to those records and they sound as bland and unexceptional and boring as the band's arena-rock era. Except for a strange number like "Milk" maybe... Thanks to Lana Del Rey for talking about that tune during an interview (I can see how the strange pace of its vocals inspired the one of "White Dress", where she even name-dropped Kings Of Leon in the lyrics). Yet it seems to me that this sort of spark is a rare case in the band's discography. And it's nowhere to be found in the disposable artefact that *Only By The Night* is anyway. 1/5 for the purposes of this list, which translates to a 5/10 grading for more general purposes (5/5 for the musicianship + 0/5 for the artistry). Next, please. Please, oh please. Number of albums left to review: 459 Number of albums from the list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 254. Albums from the list I *might* include in mine later on: 127 Albums from the list I will certainly *not* include in mine (many others are more essential to me): 162 (including this one)

Gross. Roommate was obsessed with this band and this album for all of the fall semester in 2008 and it was so overplayed in our house. I fucking hate Kings of Leon.