Kings of Leon "Only By the Night" [2008]

Well, they scrubbed these guys up and tried to make them presentable, but some folk just don't wash up good. Kings of Leon started off a bunch of family hicks from God-knows-where, and were somehow plucked from obscurity by the music industry, probably 'cause they knew they'd work cheap. Lo and behold, a few years and a couple good album reviews later, they're given really expensive haircuts like they're the weed-smoking version of the Jonas Brothers. Didn't help out their music -- shockingly, of course. If anything, softening their approach just made them sound more clueless on "Only By the Night," like an Adam Duritz solo album performed shortly after Jennifer Aniston kicked him in the skull. What Kings of Leon wouldn't have done to endure such pain! What this band's newly found handlers and presenters should have done is get singer Colin Followill to stop singing like his mouth is full of marbles. And would it have killed them to put down the Allman Brothers records every once in awhile? Far too often his singing style is reminiscent of a young Bruce Springsteen... in a dunce-cap. Basically, what doomed "Only By the Night" is all the armless shirts and hair putty in the world wasn't going to make these 20-somethings not sound like washed-up old farts. A cautionary tale for all A&R reps out there.