HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: Youth & Young Manhood – Kings Of Leon
You take a look at the KINGS OF LEON now; selling out arena tours, headlining huge festivals around the world. They’ve come a long, long way since their debut album Youth & Young Manhood released on 7th July 2003. It could have been so different had the original plan for the release gone ahead.
When the album was finished in terms of recording and production, and being sent out to DJs and publicists, there was the usual few weeks grace between receiving it and the release date. Things turned out quite different in this particular release schedule, though.
DJs were starting to play some of the tracks from the album such as Red Morning Light and Molly’s Chambers. Then an unusual email came through, to stop playing anything from the album, as the release was being put off by six months. This was not the only time it happened, as this would occur three times in total, pushing the release date back by around 18 months in the end.
The reasoning for the delay in release was due to another band releasing their debut album: THE DARKNESS. This worried the executives at RCA as the market started to shift from what was a fairly predictable rock/metal/indie/electronic cycle at that time. Instead of the 60s garage rock revival which was happening around the originally scheduled release time, the cycle started to spin more towards the glam side as Justin Hawkins et al took the world by storm with Permission To Land (2003).
With the slight switch in market preference, this could easily have derailed the release altogether, condemning the Followill family to another of music’s might have beens. Luckily, RCA decided to run with it, albeit 18 months later than originally planned, when the market did not shift sufficiently to put them off mothballing the release fully. What we got instead was a shift back towards the garage rock and indie revival that saw other such luminaries spring up around the world as THE HIVES and FRANZ FERDINAND released around the same time frame, each building off the impetus of the other.
While one part of the market was still looking at nu metal with LIMP BIZKIT, LINKIN PARK and SLIPKNOT all making major moves in the counterculture side of things, KINGS OF LEON and their ilk were showing the more mainstream music followers that rock and roll was not dead, but had merely been sleeping. With many more bands following in their wake, Youth & Young Manhood proved to be one of the catalysts for this revival before their subsequent releases would push them up into the stratosphere of world-renowned artists.
To date, the album has sold approaching 1 million copies in the UK and Australia alone, hitting number 3 in the UK album charts at release and being certified double platinum (triple platinum in Australia). Yet, when you look back on where it all started from, it could have been all for nothing. Some may call it luck, when there have been so many similar acts who didn’t even end up having their work released officially, yet for the clan Followill, there was always that belief that they would make it. A belief that ended up well founded as they became one of the biggest acts to come out in the 2000s; an absolute juggernaut of garage rock and indie rock music history.
Youth & Young Manhood was originally released on July 7 2003 via RCA.
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