Doing something of a 180 from yesterday’s post (in both theme and tone), it took a very good friend of mine mentioning Kings of Leon before I put aside months (years?) of tuning out the hype surrounding the Nashville band and went online to listen.

I did tell her I’d read a Rolling Stone cover story a while back, but wasn’t moved enough to consult iTunes. I also knew Kings of Leon had a hit with “Sex On Fire”, a song that Brandon Flowers had recently called out as having kept The Killers from being on “top of the world” (also blaming Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida”), but I couldn’t hum it for you if you asked.

But just a couple of days after our conversation, I was checking out the Billboard Hot 100, and saw that Kings of Leon sat at #5 with “Use Somebody.” Hitting play (if you haven’t been to the newly redesigned Billboard site, go), I was disappointed that all that talk had me running in the other direction, because “Use Somebody” is very, very good.

The second single from Kings of Leon’s fourth album, Only By The Night, “Use Somebody” (first released last December) holds at #5 again this week. That’s an impressive achievement for any rock band working today, but especially one that presents itself with a lot less polish than most artists who chart this high:

Lesson learned (albeit later than I’d have liked), I listened to more of the album online (thanks, Lala!), and ordered up my own copy of Only By The Night. Sometimes the hype is justly deserved.

Purchase Kings Of Leon – “Use Somebody” via iTunes, Amazon MP3.