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Kings of Leon Walls RCA

14.10.16

What do we talk about when we talk about America? What do we talk about when we talk about talking about America? What, even, do we talk about when we talk about talking about talking about America? I’ll tell you what we talk about. We talk about Denny’s and Wendy’s and IHOP, we talk about freeways and intersections, we talk about gated communities and uptowns and condominiums, we talk about grease and lust and gun-smoke, we talk about patriotism and regret and pride, we talk about flags and bills and rights, we talk about alligators and Everglades and raccoons, we talk about rednecks and neocons and regular folk, we talk about bluegrass and Alan Lomax and jazz, we talk about Fox and CNN and HBO, we talk about Mike Tyson and Michael Jordan and Tyson Gay, we talk about Coke and Pepsi and Sprite, we talk about Perez Hilton and Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian, we talk about mac and cheese and sloppy joes and hot dogs, we talk about baseball and basketball and football, we talk about Korea and Vietnam and Iraq.

We are talking shit. Because to talk about America, to really talk about America is to talk about one thing and one thing only. And it isn’t Bush or Obama or Trump or Clinton or Chicago or Detroit or New Jersey or Philip Roth or Gore Vidal or Norman Mailer or Pizza Hut or KFC or Taco Bell or Whitman or Carver or Thoreau or Emerson or Oprah or Maury or Jerry. It isn’t you. It isn’t me. It isn’t us, either. No. It’s the Kings of Leon. The Kings of Leon are more American than anything listed above, more American than a bald eagle, more American than the Grand Canyon, more American than America itself. And sadly, the Kings of Leon are becoming the most mortifying band in the world. I’ll leave you to work out how I feel about their seventh album WALLS.