A young, upstart do-gooder is hungry and out to prove something, aiming to show everyone what he or she will do. Every gig on the tour is a stop on the trail, with the big rallies in the swing states akin to the day your record drops.
Finally comes Election Day. The aspiring politician is all over the radio and everyone is talking about the person. The dam has burst.
Once elected, the game shifts.
Now, instead of proving themselves, they’re the incumbents scrambling to hold on to power. Subsequent albums become the test against their partisan rivals.
The polls have closed now and my vote is cast.
I’ve decided to bring back Kings of Leon for another term.
They looked strong early in their campaign, particularly with that second album, Aha Shake Heartbreak.
Heartbreak took the band’s promising Southern blues rock and made it dirtier in a way AC/DC would appreciate lyrically. To support the record, the group appeared with big-name artists, including several dates backing U2.
That spring with U2 punched the Tennessee rockers’ ticket for stardom. Each record since has progressively shown a deeper shade of influence from the legendary Irish quartet.
Only by the Night, the group’s 2008 platter, turned the band from rising stars into elected rock gods as “Use Somebody” and “Sex on Fire” became ubiquitous radio offerings.
They found the place where U2 meets AC/DC with a Southern rock bent, putting a pop sheen on their sleazy blues rock ’n’ roll.
Now comes re-election: October’s Come Around Sundown, cribbing even further from U2 and seeing the Kings try to stay in popular office.
All of the gritty, sleazy goodness of Heartbreak has vanished. The songs toil on the same atmospheric sunshine U2’s The Edge conjures so effortlessly.
It’s working for them commercially. The group took the No. 2 spot on Billboard’s album sales chart in its debut week.
To me, though, it’s the Kings’ weakest effort to date.
It’s flimsy enough to give even the hardest of diehards pause.
I was able to abide Only by the Night as a mainstream compromise, but the band has slinked away from what I enjoyed about the group in the first place. “Sex on Fire” might’ve lacked the intensity its title implies, but it was naughty and got my toe tapping, so I could forgive it.
I don’t begrudge the Kings their success. They wanted it, they got it and they’re entitled to all the pros and cons that come with that, from legions of adoring fans to ducking pigeon poo.
I’m not one who feels that a band owes its fans much of anything. I know I don’t owe the Kings of Leon anything more than the $10 to $15 I’ve plunked down for each of its records.
I’m also not one of those snobs who stops liking a group just because it became popular. I liked Coldplay when it couldn’t sell out a 2,000-seat theater in Denver. Five years later, I saw the group headline a sold-out Arco Arena.
But I am one of those fans who saw them on the campaign trail, so I have a vested interest in where their career goes now.
I helped elect this monster.
Now they’re in office and I have an investment in their career.
The social contract between politician and musician is different because when a musician fails us, we can hit the “Stop” button. When an elected official disappoints us, we have to wait for the person’s term to end.
Our opinions about both are subject to sea changes between records or election seasons. So I found myself at the crossroads. Is Kings of Leon still electable?
I do have an unusual sense of loyalty to them because I feel partially responsible for the group making it this far. So if nothing else, there is a lingering curiosity about what they’re going to do next, even as my interest in the group wanes.
I’m willing to give them another chance because, hey, we’ve been down the road quite a ways together and that has to count for something.
However, subsequent records of the Come Around Sundown nature — ones lacking the gritty, dirty edge of Heartbreak — may force me to switch parties.
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