KOL New Cut Opportunity from SPIN Mag

You know, many times when making up your mind, the phrase 'give me one good reason' is either said or thought. Here's one good reason (or 3) to add KOL to your vinyl collection:

Kings of Leon's history is the epitome of a mythological rock & roll story. The Followill brothers are sons of a preacher man who were raised on the road throughout the South, traveling from one Pentecostal church service to the next. They were shattered by a divorce, transformed by illicit substances and the stoner music of Led Zeppelin and rewarded with a Nashville record deal for their grinding...

ANYWHO

Check out KOL's latest, THIS MONDAY, on SPINMAG.

News

New Kings of Leon MP3 to Premiere Monday on SPIN.com

With the release of Only By the Night still two months away, SPIN.com will connect you with a free download of album cut "Crawl." If you can wait till Monday at 10 A.M., that is.

By Joe Coscarelli 07.25.08 3:36 PM

Kings of Leon / Photo by LEGO

With the release of Kings of Leon's fourth LP, Only By the Night, due Sept. 23 via RCA, SPIN.com is happy to unveil "Crawl," the first track (though not the first proper single) anyone has heard from the record.

More on SPIN.com:
>> New Kings of Leon Album Out Sept. 23
>> Royal Rock from Kings of Leon

Now, we don't have it at our fingertips just yet, but before you start sweating Jack Daniel's, check back here Monday at 10 A.M., at which point we will personally direct you to a free download of the song, which represents the only new sweet sounds from KOL since last year's Because of the Times.

Hennessy/Spin Magazine Music Contest

Spin Hot Pursuit Overview

ENTRY

The first step is pushing enter at the top of this page. So far, so easy. Next, make sure that you have already uploaded at least one piece of media on your profile page. You will need to designate one (and only one) song from your page as your official entry into Spin Hot Pursuit 2, so you've gotta have something uploaded. To designate which song you'd like to enter into the competition, simply hit the select media button, which will only appear after you hit the enter button. Got it?

VOTING

The votes occur in three phases. Phase one requires you to really rally the troops. Get the word out to your fans during this initial phase to click on your Music Nation profile page and then cast their votes for you. However, please note that each voter can only vote for a single artist a maximum of once per day -- so you may have to do some daily rallying. From there, Music Nation will place the top 500 vote-getters into the head-to-head player. Voting during this phase will involve fans choosing between randomly generated head-to-head battles. The fringe benefit for fans? New music to discover. The added bonus for those in the competition? New fans to impress. The third phase is the…

GRAND FINALE

For the final voting phase, Music Nation will send the top 20 vote-getters, along with 4 "Tastemakers’ picks" that we select weekly from the entries we think might have been overlooked, and send those 24 acts to a special panel of judges. The Grand Prize winner will receive a sweet record contract, two brand-new Gibson guitars, coverage on Spin.com and a playing slot at Spin's "Year-In-Music" Event. A second winner — the act with the highest rating from the head-to-head round — will also walk away with a cool $500.

[Origin of the Species]

Spin Mag Artist of the Day - The Cool Kids

The Chicago-based hip-hop duo's much-anticipated new EP The Bake Sale is out now on iTunes and drops conventionally June 10. Get acquainted.

By Gary L. Blackwell Jr. 05.28.08 9:07 AM

What's the Deal? The Cool Kids' slow, deliberate vocal flow coupled with simple rhythms harkens back to the glory days of acts like Boogie Down Productions and EPMD. And the duo's much-anticipated sophomore EP, The Bake Sale, which is their first commercially available disc, flaunts the Windy City natives' vintage influences with ten tracks both new and old. "88" smolders like a N.E.R.D reinterpretation of Run DMC's "Peter Piper," chock full of throwback hip-hop style and a smooth recital of a hook from "The Safety Dance." And "Black Mags" just may go down as the smoothest ode to BMX bikes ever recorded over a beat easily duplicated on an Amiga.

Who? The Cool Kids are a different kind of internet coupling. Chuck Inglish met Mikey Rocks three years ago through MySpace -- an online community where the duo eventually culled many of their fans. The two did production work together, envisioning a set of beats for other artists to lay tracks over. Rocks himself rapped during a session and wound up as the temporary 'voice' of the Cool Kids, though the two now share both vocal and production duties. The Cool Kids' debut full-length, When Fish Rides Bicycles, will drop this fall.

Fun Fact: "If I wasn't rapping, I would be a zoologist specializing in reptile and mammal studies. I know everything about animals," Mikey Rocks tells SPIN.com. "The cool kids aren't all that cool, haha."

[Origin of the Species]