Haven't seen them mentioned on TB yet (though I've not been around much lately) - so, UK TBers, what do reckon of The Darkness? I love "I Believe In A Thing Called Love", but I haven't gotten round to listening to the rest of the album yet.
If "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" is anything by which to go, they suck. That singer may have range, but the timbre of his voice is simply atrocious. Nice gimmick, but this sounds like another silly British export that won't catch on in the US.
i saw their video for get your hands off my woman, and was at first held back a bit by the hair-metal look, but by the end of it, i needed more, i down loaded a few songs, i was a bit diaspointed that they didnt hold up quite as much as get your hands off my woman, but it was still cool. so yes, i like the darkness. now just to find their cd, its not so easy to get rare cd's out this way
It already has, least around these parts. I think they're alright, they're silly and have some fun songs. Unfortunately, people will probably take them seriously and ruin it for everyone else.
I do like a few of the songs, but it's nothing new - a complete rip off, to be fairly honest. Videos are seemingly enough based around the singer; which to me suggests that there is a major marketing element involved here. from blink to the darkness. ah well. at least its fairly *talented* muscians everyone is going crazy over.
I quite like them! I think of their stuff as being very tongue-in-cheek - it'll be interesting to see whether they can keep the joke going.
20 years too late..... FWIW, they're a lot older than you think - I think maybe five years old as a band, they just reissued their debut single and NME picked up on it..... how I hate NME (but that's another thread). Anyway, I think they're just a comedy act, like a Queen parody act. And c'mon, if they'd happened 20 years ago, they'd be ridaculed along with the worst of the hair metal acts..........
I heard "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" ad nauseum while in England for a couple weeks back in September...not a bad song, and the chorus is catchy as hell. Judging from the video (they're killing aliens or something with lasers shooting out of their instruments, if I remember correctly), it doesn't seem as if they want to be taken entirely seriously, which is good. I haven't heard anything about them here in the states, but if they made it here, they certainly wouldn't be the worst thing around.
oh, the irony of Spinal Tap being an American creation when I posted a link to the Darkness' cover of Radiohead's "street spirit" someone on here said it sounded like "King Diamond with a hernia" it's funny that a retro hard-rock band could have a no.1 album in the UK in 2003- that kids who were previously into nu-metal would like them basically they're no different from the 90's UK hard-rock revivalists like Thunder, only with the kitsch factor taken beyond Spinal Tap levels- just check out their videos. I think a lot of the hype is because UK journos like things on a clever-clever "ironic" level. their Christmas song is horrible though- the joke's wearing thin, I think....
...inspired mostly by British bands (most infamously the 1983 Black Sabbath tour with the too-large-for-the-venue Stonehenge scenery). Y'all are too self-aware for your own good, that's your problem. Americans still have the ability to be earnest, as demonstrated by the contents of most "country" stations' playlists.
well, exactly- it caught on in the US before. whether it's the right time now in the US is another matter. in the mid-late 90's UK trad-rock bands like Thunder, Skin, Quireboys, Little Angels all got reviews in the music press along the lines of "this kind of thing is dated" etc. strangely The Darkness appear to have escaped that. probably due to the irony card being played.
I'm fed up with the singer's gimmicky voice. Great, you've got an interesting thing going there chap, but do you need to use it in *every* song? But, yeah... It's tongue-in-cheek rock innit? To a large extent they're pretty Queen-esque. Fun. But not to be taken seriously...
Well yes, he does have to do it on every song, it's their trademark sound. it's what makes them sound like The Darkness. It's what makes them different to all the other faceless rock acts. Good luck to them i say...long live The Darkness PS, they stand a damn good chance of being the Christmas No.1 too. Rather them than Westlife/Will 'Pop Idol Young etc....
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