why do people like the Kings of Leon?

their new song sounds almost exactly like X

It's linked in another thread, but the bit from the Johnny Borrell interview deserves to be posted in full:

7. KINGS OF LEON - "SEX ON FIRE"

JB: This song is basically the apex, death and afterlife of landfill indie all in one go. And, I’m actually going to demand we listen to another song right now. Can you pull up "Dakota" by the Stereophonics? Ok. When do the main vocals come in?

29 seconds.
And how about on "Sex is on Fire"?

29 seconds.
And when does the chorus drop?

53 seconds, and, fuck, it is actually 53 seconds on the other one too.
Right? It’s in the same key, at the same tempo; it’s the same macho, bloke mumbling in the verse, and a big chorus with loads of extended vowel sounds.

That's unbelievable. Although, I guess bands nicking shit from other bands is hardly anything new.
Of course not – everything I’ve nicked, I know exactly where it’s from. It’s just with this, it’s like we’ve been on this whole journey, and suddenly we’re back in the late 1990s with the Stereophonics song-formula. And look, the Stereophonics are really good at what they do, and they’ve never claimed to be anything else. But once your formula is that…well, we’re in Stadium Landfill territory.

So, Kings of Leon are the band that tell the whole story of landfill indie then?
Maybe that’s right. Their second record, The Bucket, was so fucking good. I loved that album. It was by far the best record of whatever year it came out. So, to hear them do this was just, well… ughh.

So I guess after this everyone stopped pretending to be punk and started pretending to be folk musicians?
Yeah, I guess then the era of Mumford & Sons started or whatever.

Or, “Razorlight with Banjos”, as they were also known.
Razorlight with Banjos? Ouch.