The Darkness

You may be right, basement jaxx acid love to thread. (which maybe you should check out!)

That about sums them up for me. I watch them with a big silly grin because I can't believe what I'm seeing but they seem to have the songs to back it up. I think they'll be a short term thrill, I'll be surprised if they come up with something as good for a second record and lord knows I don't want the music press to start some kind of new hair metal scene around them, but right now they're a lot of fun and who cares if they don't follow it up. Similar to Junior Senior in fact. They make me smile.

Plus, I hoped when I first saw them that they took themselves seriously. It would have been disappointing to find that to them this was just an ironic piss take, another Spinal Tap or Bad News. It's more interesting for them to be serious and doing this style of music and performance when it is so out of place. I like them because there is no Def Leppard.

Best thing about them is they write great lyrics (and avoid most of the metal cliches that eventually turned me off British Heavy Metal by early '81). The cover is a bit misleading, there's no tasteless sexism in the words; the protagonist in the relationship songs is way more vulnerable than you'll normally find in a hard rock lyric). I also think they are generally being serious - that "Friday" song is basically the story of my adolescence! - except on tracks 1 and 6 obv. And I just love the final song - tees up to be a Foreigner-style lurve power ballad, and it's actually turns out to be an ode to masturbation.

They don't deserve 50 threads though, and neither did The Strokes.

The Darkness rock in much the same way Beyonce or Girls Aloud rock, but the prominence of the guitars and the general band setup/ugliness lead to people assuming they should be within some arbitrary set of imposed rules.

They are not making hair metal. They are making POP! MUSIC! that is influenced by hair metal.

It can't be pop music if most people don't get it, whether due to ignorance or anything else.

I don't see much of a hair metal influence in the darkness by the way, more Classic Rock/AOR than anything.

Chart placings would appear to show that people ARE getting The Darkness in increasing numbers. Plus you can buy the album in my local Tescos, and everyone knows that it the ultimate barometer of pop success in this country.

You wouldn't call the White Stripes or Coldplay pop would you?

I think this is a very interesting comment and makes me wonder whether maybe it's because I'm old enough to remember a time when giant creatures similar to these stalked this land devouring everything before them, that The Darkness immediately make my hackles rise; even despite the fact that they are in fact clearly only a dwarf version of the species, safely neutered, completely domesticated and a threat to absolutely no-one.

"They are not making hair metal. They are making POP! MUSIC! that is influenced by hair metal."

Yes indeed, but do you think the band - or indeed their fans - actually realise that?!

Ronan, acts that get on a NOW album are by definition pop music. They don't complete the genre, but they're definitely included.

But mightn't it be possible to make pop music while suffering from the delusion that it's rock?

Green Day managed to make pop music while suffering from the delusion that it was punk, so I can't see why it shouldn't be possible.

Ronan - I would call Coldplay pop, actually, well - the singles at any rate. Same with Travis. Once again it's the guitars that appear to be getting in the way. Likewise, it's pop by virtue of being very catchy, instantly accessible and played on the radio lots. 'Era' has nothing to do with it, no one doubted Robbie Williams' pop-ness when he was doing karaoke Sinatra covers.

I guess I'm saying it's possible for things to sell alot of records and not be pop. At least I think so anyway. I feel pop is urban music loosely speaking hence my exclusion of the darkness, robbie doing swing, robbie's last album etc. I don't think the darkness or even robbie recently fit into the smash hits or the saturday morning tv axis. Have the Darkness done saturday tv as a matter of interest?

This thread has reminded me to download "You Said No" so thanks.

This seems to be a point where our opinions can converge and our tastes simultaneoulsy diverge then Tom - I'd no more listen to Busted than I would The Darkness!

The one remaining bone of contention however remains that I would say that both Busted and the majority of their fans know exactly what they are - a teeny pop band pretending to be a "real" band for a laugh - and they're grinning all over their stupid faces as they play dress-up. The Darkness on the other hand genuinely seem to be suffering from the delusion that they really are a rock band....

I am only excluding swingtime robbie. also robbie is not a regular case cos he could release drum and bass made with biscuit tins and elastic bands and still sell out the moon for 12 nights running.

SHUT UP A BAND I DON'T LIKE ARE ROCK OK?

Are we getting into the realms of the essential difference between pop and rock now? e.g. Rock is still trying to come to terms that it's longevity and increasing maturity and (rightly or wrongly) is wanting to be taken seriously; whereas Pop is fully aware that it is inherently and by definition completely ephemeral and consequently doesn't care?

Why not? I mean, most of Discovery is house AND pop simultaneously, just like Beyonce is rnb and pop simultaneously. I think the problem to an extent lies in your definition of pop as 'urban' for two main reasons.

1. It excludes Will Young, Gareth Gates, Martine McCutcheon, David Sneddon etc etc.

2. It relies on an FT/ILM enforced pop canon which I suspect includes Beyonce and Nelly and Justin Timberlake and the Sugababes or whoever, but just doesn't exist in the real pop-listening world - ie the world of Capital FM, basically, which is just as likely to contain Queen and Mike and the Mechanics and Coldplay and whoever thrown in as well.

3. Pop is more an umbrella term than a recognisable genre.

Are we getting into the realms of the essential difference between pop and rock now? e.g. Rock is still trying to come to terms that it's longevity and increasing maturity and (rightly or wrongly) is wanting to be taken seriously; whereas Pop is fully aware that it is inherently and by definition completely ephemeral and consequently doesn't care?

I think this definition is rubbish. Wet Wet Wet probably took/take themselves far more seriously as ARTISTS than The Darkness.

Ronan, I can sympathise with your desire for clearly defined boundaries - maybe again that's part of the reason why I don't like The Darkness OR Busted OR Robbie....

This is why the pop/rock dichotomy doesn't make sense.

I didn't offer it as a definition Matt, it very clearly isn't even attempting to be a definition, just one of the differences that have arisen between Rock and Pop as the two have diverged.

Matt Capital Radio thank heaven never play Mike And The Mechanics any more. I think there's a kind of hidden war between Capital Radio and its audience though, even more so than with R1 - CR want to be a modern up-to-date pop station that plays Sean Paul a lot and whenever it does its top 500 songs it's all Bo Rap and Careless Whisper.

We can only hope they did "Get Your Hands Off My Woman".

It just feels a bit cosy to me, they don't sound like Beyonce or Jay Z, they sound like a clunky old metal band and I don't think anyone who's really into modern pop music is being obtuse by not liking them, they're an eccentricity if anything. I suppose I also feel what's the point of establishing them as pop music. Similarly you could argue what's the point of establishing them as rock music, and I'd have to say cos it's not really fair to the genre of music they're in to appropriate them as pop, cos once you do, inevitably it becomes a way to ignore the fact that you love a rock band.

I sometimes feel like this about your 2 Many DJs stuff aswell Tom, given the dance records they play aren't really massive hits all the time, and 2 Many DJs had so much electro I often felt they were a dance act. I know I was the one moaning about the principle of them playing all the rock songs, I've kind of given up on that now, though I still think indie-disco is a little too much of an oversight and an affront to soulgrabber, vitalic, alan braxe, daft punk (bearing in mind they tend to choose rollin' and scratchin'), none of which would really go down well in any indie disco except perhaps Alan Braxe. Perhaps.

This is true, of course. Although I don't like Coldplay and still consider them pop, probably more than I do Jay-Z. But then again as I've mentioned I define current pop by what's on the shelves at Tesco's at any given time.

I can certainly see The Darkness playing the Smash Hits Pollwinners Party this year though.

I think Matt is pretty much OTM here. I think The Darkness are pop in the sense that they are drawing on the tradition of Queen through Def Leppard - which may be the most popular export (in terms of sales figures) British music has ever had? They are pop in the same way that 'Jump' by Van Halen is a great pop single.

Unfortunately, they are really bad pop. Really, my argument against them has little to do with how seriously they take themselves - it's to do with the fact that their music is just plain bad bad bad and lost what little comedy value it once possessed after approximately three listens.