0.1.3 - I was on Mulholland Drive with the radio on...
They played Augustus Pablo, and the Kings of Leon...
'Los Angeles Waltz', Razorlight
There are only so many people in the world who have the combination of skill, opportunity, athleticism, and intelligence to play as a starting Quarterback in the National Football League, home of what our American cousins call Football, and I call American Football. America has a population of 335 million people. Only 66 people started a game as an NFL Quarterback this season, the most important position in football. No matter how you rank amongst your peers, if you made it to a team, and you were picked as a starter, you are in the top 0.005% of people who once thought "I'd like to be an NFL quarterback". It's an exclusive club, and it takes talent and drive and luck to even get near the door.
I've been a fan of American Football since I was taken to a game as a young teen and saw the then Los Angeles Raiders play the New York Jets in New York. Because I was a contrary child, I took to cheering against the home team, and the away team rewarded my misguided support by winning the game, cementing in me what is now 35 years of torment as a fan the Los Angeles/Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders, a team which can't ever seem to get things right. At least I didn't end up as a Jets fan.
Around 2014 I began a different decade-long fandom, this time of the sadly now defunct Around The NFL Podcast, where the obvious friendship between the hosts, and the deeply unsanitised approach to a sport who's corporate roots often keep it's media output highly anodyne and uncritical of the global megacorporation it is in itself, and the billionaires who own the teams, was incredibly refreshing and compelling. From the moment I found the show, it existed as one of the few podcasts to demand multiple hours per week of listening time, which I gladly accommodated. Sadly, in 2024, that unsanitised approach and anti-authoritarian streak led to the show, without fanfare, being yanked off the air and the team of heroes who gave it life split up.
The show will have many lasting impacts on me as a person, but the most prominent of which is the concept of The Dalton Line. An unusual start to a blog post about music, sure, but I am going somewhere I promise. I'd like you all to meet Andy Dalton.
The Red Rifle
The position laid out by the hosts of ATN, multiple times across multiple years, is that Andy Dalton is the Prime Meridian of Quarterbacks. He won't do anything to hurt you or negatively impact your chances to win; he's not high risk/high reward. Conversely, he won't perform at a level which will elevate the team around him, or perform outstandingly; he can't win you a game with individual, exceptional play. If you have Andy Dalton on your team, you have a functional quarterback. Teams above the Dalton Line have something better than that; teams below, well, they need to continue looking for someone who will put them above that line in a season or two. By all accounts, Andy Dalton is a good guy, married his college girlfriend, has a big family, runs a charitable foundation. More people should aspire to be like Andy Dalton.
The Kings of Leon are the Dalton Line of modern guitar-based music.
Now, I think people are going to read that and think this is a damning-with-faint-praise approach, but I mean this with some degree of sincerity. While there are more people who make it as a musical act than an NFL quarterback, it's still an exclusive club, especially one which includes a Grammy win. As a group, they still needed drive and talent and opportunity for the Kings of Leon to make their careers playing music, and they do it just fine.
If what you are looking for is some guitar-led, inoffensive, Blues Rock performed well, but not extravagantly, you could pick any song from the four basically-interchangable albums I listened to today and get a Prime Meridian Rock & Roll experience out of the deal. The Kings of Leon have a lane, and they know how to drive between the lines.
But they won't challenge you; they won't inspire you or bring you to soaring, emotional heights. That's probably OK; not everything has to do that. While sometimes I want to watch The Wire, sometimes I am grumpy or tired and I don't want to think too hard and I can watch Elementary or White Collar and be happy. Kings of Leon don't just set the bar, they are the bar. If you can't be more interesting or talented or inspiring than them, then you don't make the cut.
However, like Andy Dalton himself, the Kings of Leon are fading as they age. Neither, I suspect, are representative of the Prime Meridian now; I can't say for sure, but Andy Dalton is now a backup to a talented youngster, and I've listened to the FIVE albums which have been released since this initial run of albums, and my only real memory of them was wishing I was listening to one of these four instead.
I saw them live last year for the first time, at the Co-Op Live in Manchester, a huge-and-terrible venue with a troubled launch and the most exploitative, corporate live music experience you can imagine. I went with my other half, sister-in-law, and 14 year old niece. Her mother has listened to Kings of Leon probably for the entire span of the eldest niece's life, and for her, this was like seeing Elvis or Jerry Lewis in the prime of the birth of Rock & Roll. They played the hits, which I appreciated since they had a new album out which I'd only skimmed through, and they did so without exceeding or underwhelming my expectations, while the niece screamed and wept with each new song.
Maybe I am too much of an old cynic these days. I try hard not to be, but the emotional investment the eldest niece went through took me back to a simpler time. Maybe, if we are all still here, I'll ask her in fifteen years time who the new hot bands are, and how they hold up to the time she saw the Kings of Leon live. I think the Kings have got a fighting chance.
