Project 1001: Youth And Young Manhood by Kings of Leon
You know you could've been a wonder / Taking your circus to the sky / You couldn't take it on the tight rope / No, you had to take it on the side
All the cool kids seem to love Kings of Leon. I’ve never been into them. No particular reason. I haven’t been avoiding them. I just didn’t make it a point to ever listen to them. Until today. The cool kids were on to something, and I’ve been missing out. This album is fantastic from start to finish. Even if it’s not terribly original. I got a little bit of a vibe of visiting the old Silver Dollar Saloon in Lansing, MI on one of those nights where the band sounds good and perfectly executes lots of cover songs including some where you can’t quite place the original artist. My rating:
The Village Voice called Youth & Young Manhood is 2003’s finest rock debut.1
The Austin Chronicle gave a glittering review including:
If Alabama's Drive-by Truckers are the Second Coming of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Tennessee's Kings of Leon are ZZ Top -- barons of boogie. Boy kings. When the hopped-up, burp-gun burst of opener "Red Morning Light" goes off, a new generation of beer-drinkers and hell-raisers fires another round into the heavens.2
From The Guardian’s five-star review:
Clinging to their retro influences with a toddler's tenacity, their debut is a Kerouac-styled, lust-propelled journey into emergent adulthood.
Using and abusing passionate gospel, country sweetness and filthy guitar licks, the Kings of Leon are the kind of authentic, hairy rebels the Rolling Stones longed to be.
Driving, fuzzy rhythms grind under Dylan-esque phrasing, with singer Caleb Followill's whiskey-woozy voice and good-time attitude never obscuring his obvious fears.
Above a piercing lead guitar that never strays far from the Chuck Berry template, he tears into Red Morning Light and makes the White Stripes sound about as bluesy as Wham!.3
Critical acclaim was not universal as a handful of writers savaged Youth and Young Manhood. Scott Hreha writing for Popmatters absolutely eviscerated Kings of Leon using phrases like:
• “one of the most extreme cases of public relations hyperbole in recent history”
• “weak attempt at an Allman Brothers-style guitar line in ‘Joe’s Head’, but even that’s entirely devoid of the soulful complexity that made the Allmans’ melodies so memorable”
• “…the songs are so generic that the only thing left at the record’s conclusion is the feeling of how hollow and insubstantial the whole thing is.”
• “virtually unmemorable”
• “woeful attempt”
• “Youth and Young Manhood is most definitely not one of the best debut albums of the last 10 years; it wouldn’t even earn that title if the timeframe were whittled down to the last 10 days.”4
Ouch.
Scott Plagenhoef systematically tears apart the record:
Their bar band approach sounds as if they've taken a book of rock history and, dutifully following along, bookmarked some of the most unremarkable passages.
Their music is often referred to as Southern Rock, although it doesn't rock at all-- it lacks force, velocity, and power. It also has little in common with a lot of what of the best Southern Rock had; it doesn't display the craftsmanship and technical proficiency of the Allman Brothers, the anthemism and storytelling of Lynyrd Skynyrd, nor the eccentricity of Little Feet. More accurately, Kings of Leon sound as if they're aiming more to ape the blues-inflected Rolling Stones, The Faces, or early Bob Seger. Unfortunately, without the dexterity or ferocity of any of them, they end up closer to the likes of Foghat, Black Oak Arkansas, or The Doobie Brothers.
Kings of Leon aim to meet your every expectation to a T, and nothing more, making music that's seemingly bulletproof simply because it's built on the foundation of the way things were done in the good ol' days. Which is much of this band's problem: Kings of Leon attempt to substitute their supposed possession of "honesty," "purity," "realism," "history" and "authenticity" for ideas, hooks and songs. And like so many bands touted as bearing these intangible, inaudible sensations, they simply aim for pantomime, careful not to reach for anything other than the tried-and-true simply because that's perceived as the "right" way to do things.5
Um, double ouch. Damn.
Enjoy and listen without prejudice. Cheers!
Prime Playlist: 197. Youth And Young Manhood by Kings of Leon
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For details about this project, read this: Project 1001 Albums
Charts
• Peak on Billboard 200 album chart: #1136
• Singles on Billboard Hot 100 chart: n/a
• RIAA certification: n/a
Released on July 7, 2003. Here’s what else was happening:
Pop Culture
• Number one song: “This is the Night” by Clay Aiken7
• Number one album: Dance with my Father by Luther Landross8
• Number one movie: Charlies Angels: Full Throttle by McG (a Kalamazoo boy)9
• Most watched TV programs: CSI, Friends, Joe Millionaire, ER, American Idol (Tue), Survivor, Everybody Loves Raymond, Law & Order, American Idol (Wed), CSI: Miami, NFL Monday Night Football, Will & Grace, The Bachelorette, Scrubs, Law & Order: SVU10
• NYT bestseller, fiction: The Lake House by James Patterson11
• NYT bestseller, non-fiction: Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton12
Some other albums released that week
• Chapter II by Ashanti
• Frail Words Collapse by As I Lay Dying
• Michigan by Sufjan Stevens
• Time Will Tell by Robert Cray
• Officially Dead by Veruca Salt
• Broken Freedom Song: Live from San Francisco by Kris Kristofferson
• Diamond Dave by David Lee Roth
• Young Liars by TV on the Radio13
Sport
• Jul 4 LA Lakers basketball star Kobe Bryant is arrested in Eagle, Colorado for sexual assault, charges eventually dismissed.
• Jul 5 Wimbledon Women's Tennis: Serena Williams successfully defends her title beating older sister Venus 4-6, 6-4, 6-2.
• Jul 6 Martina Navratilova claims her 20th all-time Wimbledon title as she and Leander Paes beat Andy Ram & Anastassia Rodionova 6-3, 6-3 in the mixed doubles final.
• Jul 6 Wimbledon Men's Tennis: Roger Federer beats Australian Mark Philippoussis 7-6, 6-2, 7-6 for his first Grand Slam title.
• Jul 7 Tour de France: After 2nd stage, Australians are in possession of both yellow & green jerseys for the first time, Brad McGee overall leader & Robbie McEwen sprint leader.
• Jul 7 US Open Women's Golf, Pumpkin Ridge GC: Hilary Lunke wins in a playoff with Kelly Robbins & Angela Stanford for her only career LPGA tournament victory.14
Notable Births
• Jul 1 Storm Reid, American actress (A Wrinkle in Time, Euphoria), born in Atlanta, Georgia.
• Jul 1 Tate McRae, Canadian singer-songwriter and dancer (You Broke Me First), born in Calgary, Alberta
• Jul 13 Wyatt Oleff, American actor (It), born in Chicago, Illinois.15
Historical Events
• Jul 5 SARS is declared "contained" by the WHO after affecting 26 countries and resulting in 774 deaths.
• Jul 8 Sudan Airways Flight 39, with 116 people on board, crashes in Sudan; the only survivor is a two-year-old boy who subsequently dies as a result of his injuries.
• Jul 22 Members of US 101st Airborne, aided by Special Forces, attack a compound in Mosul, Iraq, killing Uday Hussein and Qusay Hussein, sons of Saddam Hussein, along with Mustapha Hussein, Qusay's 14-year old son, and a bodyguard.16
Notable Deaths
• Jul 4 Barry White, American singer ("Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, Babe"; "You're The First, The Last, My Everything"), dies at 58.
• Jul 6 Christian "Buddy" Ebsen Jr., American actor (Beverly Hillbillies, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Barnaby Jones), dies of complications from pneumonia at 95.
• Jul 6 Skip Battin, American singer-songwriter (The Byrds), dies at 69.
• Jul 15 Tex Schramm, American football president and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys (1960-88), dies at 83.
• Jul 25 John Schlesinger, English stage and Academy Award-winning film director (Midnight Cowboy; Darling), dies at 77.
• Jul 27 Bob Hope, English-born American actor, comedian and entertainer, dies at 100.17
Ibid.