Since this is my first go at this, I’m going to go through a few albums that have already been out a few months, but that have been in regular rotation on my iPod recently.  Bear with me.  We’ll start with the Kings of Leon’s latest release, Only By the Night.

Previous albums you have to own:   Youth and Young Manhood, Aha Shake Heartbreak, Because of the Times

I have a soft spot in my heart for the Kings of Leon.  They’re one of the bands that I discovered early on in their careers and have been following ever since.  Bands like that tend to give me a feeling of ownership, so when they do blow up, it’s like watching a kid grow.  I’ve been on the bandwagon since their first major album, when practically nobody knew who they were in the States, but they were huge in Europe.  I’ve seen them live at least 6 times, including recently back in November, and every time they kick my ass.  They play the kind of dirty, rollicking, garage-rock songs that make me want to get drunk and howl at the moon.

The new album, Only By the Night, is generally good.   KoL have evolved a bit since their first album, but the most recent change in the new album is a bit of a more radio-friendly sound.  The songs on this album and its predecessor, Because of the Times, are more polished than their earlier work.  This comes partly from the fact that some of the songs are a bit slower paced compared to some of their frantic earlier albums, and partly because the lyrics are actually intelligible this time around.  KoL’s lead singer, Caleb Followill, is a student of Eddie Vedder’s Yellow Ledbetter school of singing, so it’s tough to decipher what’s he singing on a lot of their previous work.  That being said, the bits and pieces that you catch and can figure out are usually clever, insightful, and unapologetically sexual, so I kind of like the mystery.

Even with the slightly different sound, KoL is better at writing and playing a rock song than most bands out right now.  At their cleanest, KoL are still far dirtier than any of the mainstream acts.  They can rock a grungy southern-rock  tune or a sweeping arena sing-along as well as anyone.  This album features a bit of both, which is a pretty nice balance.  If you like that sort of thing, you’ll like this album. In my opinion, there isn’t a truly bad song on it.

Barn Burners(s):   Closer, Sex on Fire, Use Somebody

Piss-break Song(s):  Revelry

Best lyric(s):  “A choke and a gag, she spit up and come back for more” – I Want You

Rating: 4 1/2 peppers

A bunch of sources are reporting that The Roots will be the new house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. I’m awestruck by this, but I guess somebody has to pick up the slack for that ass clown. I hate Fallon with every fiber of my being for prancing around on the field in Busch Stadium after the Red Sox beat the Cardinals in the 2004 World Series. The fact that it was just for a movie pisses me off even more. That movie was an abortion. Even Sox fans hate it, and they eat up anything that feeds their enormous egos. 

What I can’t understand is, the Roots are fucking awesome, and Jimmy Fallon is most definitely the antithesis of awesome. The Roots are a bunch of cool, edgy hip-hop guys, and Fallon is a geeky white guy that laughs at his own jokes too much. It’s the equivalent of Bob Dylan hanging out with the retards from The Hills. Why would they agree to do this? I just can’t fathom how they’ll mesh, although I guess the one thing they have in common is that they’re big with college-aged kids, so maybe it’s a perfect storm of ratings for the pot-smoking, glue-sniffing demographic. I guess somebody has to be buying “SNL: Best of Jimmy Fallon” DVD’s. Let me guess…2 hours of smirking and giggling at Horatio Sanz? I’ll pass.

Anyways, this reminds me of a good story that brought joy to my black heart. A friend of mine that lives in NYC was once at a party that Fallon attended, and ended up playing table tennis (beer pong, probably) against Fallon. The stakes of the game were that the loser had to buy the winner a shot. Well, my friend proceeded to dominate Jimmy, and trash-talk him the whole way. So, before the game even ended, Jimmy ended up getting pissy and storming off. For the rest of the night, my friend followed Jimmy around the party, while he was trying to talk to people and hit on girls and repeated, over and over, “Hey Jimmy, you owe me a shot! Hey Jimmy, you owe me a shot!”. Needless to say, Mr. Fallon was nonplussed. I wish I would have been there, because that just illustrates to me that he’s exactly the weaselly little shit that I think he is.