'Only by the Night' by Kings of Leon
Trotter’s Top Ten position : 3 in 2008
UK Chart high : 1 in 2008
Now I know with this one I can't really win. Some folk will decry it being on the list at all, calling KoL sellouts and saying they preferred their earlier stuff when you couldn't really understand a word Caleb was singing. Others will ask why it isn't even higher with such massive hits, haircuts, assured vocals, production and world-conquering adventures behind it. Well, partly that's why 'Only by the Night' sits somewhere in the middle (and partly because it soundtracked my west coast USA holiday). I was getting a bit fed up with Caleb sounding like a deep south version of Vic Reeve's Club Singer ('Hello') and quite prepared for them to get some of the success they deserved on the main stage. They did that in spades here, and okay, we all could do with not hearing 'Sex on Fire' for about five years, but you have to admit it's a great song (though I've kept it off the Spotify lists). These first four tracks, including opener 'Closer' (paradoxically) and the accerbic 'Crawl', are as good a 'first half' to any cd you'll hear from this decade. Put that together with the brilliant almost-hymnal 'Cold Desert' which ends the album and it well deserves its spot at 28. To be honest, it's the tracks in between that let it down a bit though, fairly pedestrian 'plodders' that, if they'd waited more than the year between this album and their previous one may have been improved or quality-controlled off the record. I said at the time I would have preferred to wait a few months for a whole great album than get this one early. Unfortunately, they, their label or both decided a quick release would be best. What's done is done, I'm sure they'll live with being at Number 28 on here. And no, I don't think this is their best album.
Look at Sex on Fire ; Use Somebody ; Notion
Listen to a sampling of the Top Fifty on Spotify as we go or the 'one from each album' version
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