MTV’s John Norris has a story on MTV’s webpage that’s partially about Kings of Leon’s new album, Only by the Night, but mostly trying to figure out why the band isn’t as big in America as they are in Britain.
“This summer, the Kings headlined the main stage at Glastonbury, the granddaddy of U.K. festivals. Now that's big. Echoes brother and bassist Jared Followill, "We can go to the U.K. and play all of England, literally the entire country, and it'll sell out. And then we come back home, and people are like, 'You guys are nothing.' "
They're hardly nothing, but it is an interesting paradox, since apart from their royal name, the Kings are American through and through — borne out by five years of bar-band, country-garage, Allman Brothers-meet-Strokes music.”
But Norris only briefly touches on the fact that mild-mannered rock bands don’t get played on MTV anymore (damn you Lil Wayne!), and rock is still king in Britain. Plus, rock bands have almost always been second-class citizens to pop stars in America (from Elvis, to Michael Jackson, to Madonna).
For my money, Kings of Leon aren’t huge here because they’ve been billed since the get-go as the southern version of the Strokes, and since the Strokes nose-dived around the time of their second album, the Kings were relegated to second-tier status. Or it could be that they don’t have the chops or the tunes to be mega-huge stateside. [MTV]
Kings of Leon »
I feel the reason bands like Kings of Leon (how are simply amazing!) get no airplay is because well, MTV underestimates it’s viewers by playing to the lowest common denominator assuming they viewers will watch or listen to whatever is “hot” at the moment and just keep following empty trend after empty trend rather than holding on to something with substance I don’t know why they don’t understand that. I felt MTV did less of that in the mid 90’s with Alternative Nation and 120 Minutes. I really don’t think it’s going to get any better.