The Darkness

The Darkness's album has now climbed back to the top of the charts, besting Starsailor's new release. Are they allowed to be pop music yet?

because they prefer it to 'your' pop. it goes no deeper than that. they just like it better.

no, hang on, they're wrong and you're right, because you're obviously cleverer.

i love this thread. the anti-darkness kidz, well, they're just so... rockist?

i mean, that's the essence of your argument, isn't it? that's not very insightful, is it? where do you expect such a train of thought to embark?

my point is, people like the darkness because, well, they like the darkness. they like the over-the-top glam, the ridiculousness, and the great and catchy songs. if you hate that, then by all means rail against it with all your erudite fury. but stomping around on your own little cloud whining "why do people not like exactly the same stuff as me" without even engaging the question of "why?" is absolutely and totally pointless.

i mean, isn't it obvious why people love the darkness? (and they do...)

While The Darkness just seems like a no-brainer to me, I guess, squinting hard with my third eye i can imagine why some people might not be able to understand why others might like The Darkness. but my point is, surely we can raise the level if discussion above I completely fail to see why, when there is so much great pop around, people even bother about such fucking awful pop. Shit, most NON-pop is more fun, more catchy and less supremely irritating. (and i'm sorry for singling you out, Alex)... because that sentence is just so empty of any kind of insight beyond stating (and not actually supporting or exploring) subjective opinions - i hate this because i hate it - as to be an utter waste of words. that it's irritating or non-catchy are totally subjective statements that might define why Alex hates them, but are of absolutely no use in defining why they are popular, why other people are so moved by them. because the obvious answer is simply for the darkness fan to reply, "because they are NOT irritating, and because their songs ARE catchy". and really, does that get us anywhere?

Or am i just talking to myself here?

exactly... what would be the point of stating subjective opinions as objective absolutes, in the contexts of an objective question? Asking why the general mass likes something, and just stating your own personally-held opinions like they were inarguable facts (when they in fact hinge totally on such variables as how many sugars you like in your tea) to support your disbelief, well, its all a bit student-y, isn't it?

i mean, you'd certainly be the first to chastise a darkness fan who slagged off what many of you would deem as 'genuine' pop music just because "its irritating and its not catchy", wouldn't you? be honest now...

Also what good is a pop message board if sometimes you can't just use it to register total disbelief and disgust at what's selling!

(NB "I Believe..." is one of the pop singles of the year)

and that's a fair opinion, but there was no engagement with the ARGUMENT... and if pop is defined by popular, as it was up the board (i don't wanna assign that meaning to the word myself, its too limiting, though i agree with it to a certain degree) then The Darkness have SUCCEEDED as pop because they are popular, QED.

for another thing he's saying there is a load of great other pop around and explicitly saying that if you too like pop then you shouldn't be paying attention to the Darkness.

again that's fine, but there's no argument for why that would support the great weight of opprobrium (is that the right word, or am i confusing it with an anti-indigestion drug?) he declares for The Darkness, no argument for why you shouldn't be paying attention to The Darkness beyond the fact he simply doesn't like 'em... although Alex has argued elsewhere for why HE hates them, there's no argument for why people WOULDN'T love The Darkness...

Also what good is a pop message board if sometimes you can't just use it to register total disbelief and disgust at what's selling!

I understand, I guess, ultimately, I just don't CARE if other people like what I like or not... Is that hopelessly insular? Then again, my JOB is to argue for or against people buying certain records, so maybe i'm fooling myself...? Or maybe I've just decided decrying the 'taste' of a faceless 'public' is as pointless as it is patronising, and would rather engage the artists' strong or weak points themselves, rather than giving way to dramatic exhalations of exasperation...

(NB "I Believe..." is one of the pop singles of the year)

without a doubt...

would I have annoyed you less if, instead of trying to engage the argument, i just posted smug one-line replies?

haha dan p i laughed so much i fell off the couch!!

Ah! Then maybe I might actually like it! :-)

I actually agree with Stevie here, my post was my off-the-cuff reaction to waking up, switching on the radio and having to scrabble for the remote AGAIN because of that damn song, then going to watch The Box in the hopes of seeing the new Liberty X single and... guess what was on? It wasn't meant to be a reasoned opinion.

you said i mean, isn't it obvious why people love the darkness? (and they do...) and I've forgotten the context if it was ironic, but this is pretty much the same thing as what I did. If you made a good strong case FOR The Darkness I've missed it. To argue against The Darkness: this thread established a while ago that we should engage with them on a strictly pop (as opposed to rock) level, which to me suggests focusing on your gut reaction to them rather than over-analysing the music in the search for 'real' reasons for liking/disliking them. I mean, that's what this whole strand of criticism is about, isn't it? Girls Aloud make trashy disposable pop but it makes me DANCE ergo it is GREAT. The Darkness make trashy disposable pop but it makes me cringe (even more so than Madonna rapping) and turn the radio off ergo it is BAD. I don't see anyone saying that snide reactions to other pop acts (Madonna, Javine, Xtina, whoever) need more depth to them. I've just searched ILM for Tori Amos references, actually, and none of the negative comments about her are reasoned at all. NONE. They're all "Tori Amos, ugh" or "Tori Amos is annoying".

If you want a reasoned argument against The Darkness, though - I think I argued earlier here that the whole joke was that they were terminally, embarrassingly bad and uncool. I mean... they're a lot like people dressing up for a fancy dress party in the most ludicrous outfits imaginable. The first time you see them it's like "omg I can't believe they dared, ahahahaha" but if they keep doing it it's like "what complete and utter twats".

and I've forgotten the context, if it was ironic forgive me,

sometimes I could do with finishing my sentences.

Exactly, but that is, ultimately, a very personal response. I don't know if this is through age, but nowadays when I hear pop so repulsive it makes me turn it off, I'm still not surprised that people like it. Hell, Cheeky Girls made me cringe (while i admire that they've such success with a song so brazenly titled 'Touch My Bum') but it was obvious they'd be huge. Meanwhile, The Darkness actually have pretty hook-laden songs, and a strong image, and a lot of press attention (including the Sun now) so its certainly no surprise to me that they've actually been successful.

It was obvious to us at Kerrang! that they'd be HUGE when we played it in the office, and everyone was clapping their hands and singing along throughout the entire album. The mag was initially suspicious of the band because of the whole 'joke' aspect of it, but i don't think it *is* a joke, at least not completely. You don't get that good at playing the joke just to make some ironic joke, and the songs themselves stand up without the ironic subtext and context.

If you want a reasoned argument against The Darkness, though - I think I argued earlier here that the whole joke was that they were terminally, embarrassingly bad and uncool. I mean... they're a lot like people dressing up for a fancy dress party in the most ludicrous outfits imaginable. The first time you see them it's like "omg I can't believe they dared, ahahahaha" but if they keep doing it it's like "what complete and utter twats".

But the thing is, they were never actually BAD. As musicians, they're pretty fucking proficient. As for Justin's falsetto, well, my mum always HATED Soft Cell because she thought Marc Almond always sang flat... But that's exactly part of the reason 'tainted love' is such a string pop song. And as for uncool, well - cool doesn't make you rich. Some popstars are supposed to be ridiculous - have you never seen Mud? That doesn't make them any worse as popstars. But no, you're right, they would've been a lot cooler if they'd gotten stylists in to tell them what the kids in hoxton are wearing right now.

should read

You don't get that good at playing the guitar just to make some ironic joke,

similarly, 'Tainted Love' is a STRONG pop song, not a STRING pop song.

I think there're two separate things here: why Band X will be HUGE, and how to understand how anyone likes something you find repulsive no matter how big it is. Oddly I'm less surprised that The Darkness are so successful, maybe because of the tradition of bad novelty acts which Britain upholds so well (aforementioned Cheeky Girls); also there is no one else at all like them around right now. Javine is infinitely better than them, but at the same time she's just doing the pop-R&B thing which everyone is. The Darkness... well they're just the Cheeky Girls for guitar boys.

But while I can understand why people would buy the Cheeky Girls or The Darkness, I can't understand anyone really loving their music, or why anyone would take either more seriously than the other. (OK, that's disingenuous, they're boys with guitars, so obviously they get taken more seriously than anyone else.)

Re: the ironic joke thing. If it's not an ironic joke that just makes it SO MUCH WORSE! Like, you take this schtick you pull SERIOUSLY?!

But the thing is, they were never actually BAD. As musicians, they're pretty fucking proficient. As for Justin's falsetto, well, my mum always HATED Soft Cell because she thought Marc Almond always sang flat... But that's exactly part of the reason 'tainted love' is such a string pop song. And as for uncool, well - cool doesn't make you rich. Some popstars are supposed to be ridiculous - have you never seen Mud? That doesn't make them any worse as popstars. But no, you're right, they would've been a lot cooler if they'd gotten stylists in to tell them what the kids in hoxton are wearing right now.

no, I've never seen Mud. I think I'm too young. < /smug>

Bad and technically proficient can and often do go hand in hand, especially with the overblown guitar histrionics which The Darkness indulge in. Look at meeeee, I can play a guitar solo! Widdle-widdle-wank. Like The Datsuns live, ugh.

I didn't know the singer was called Justin. When you mentioned Justin's falsetto I was like "I loooove Justin's falsetto!"... why people wouldn't take Timberlake's falsetto over Darkness bloke's is beyond me (recurring argument this), Justin T's voice has all the bases won - sex appeal, technical merit, timing, vocal tics, comedy potential, versatility, everything.

I now have and, well, if they're funny it's in an 'Oh! Drama!' way rather than soggy-with-irony damp Digestive of a metal laff-in. I think of Sparks and The Associates in their melodramatic spasms. I can't quite *hear* Sparks and The Associates as they lurch into hysterics because of all that ordinaire guitar nonsense, but that's OK. More blusher, less bluster.

- Marc Almond may have sung flat at times but he doesn't on "Tainted Love".

- Justin Darkness completely wins the falsetto battle; his tone is much less pinched and forced than Justin T's; in fact, Justin T should really consider singing in his lower register from here on out because it's inifitely more pleasing to the ear.

As we can now see it was a dry run for The Darkness phenom, it must have yielded useful data. The necessity of Paul Young's take on "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is still unrevealed.

The Darkness fucking rocks. There's no way you can fake shit like this. "Get You Hands Off Of My Woman" is way better than any '80s metal (which I pretty much despised then, except for Iron Maiden and Priest, I s'pose). I wish I could figure out who they remind me of. For some really stupid reason the Mission keeps popping up into my head, but that's not right at all. Fuck it.

Two very good examples, thankyou. I don't think The Darkness take themselves any more or less seriously than The Cult in particular, and The Cult've largely been treated as a bona fide "proper" rock band from day one. The Darkness have (at least) three cracking singles, a great schtick and smiles to charm the handbags off grannies. I mean, look at the alternatives...Starsailor? Dido? Meh.

Every time I see The Darkness on telly tho, I think of Buffalo Bill from Silence Of The Lambs and...Terrorvision. I'm sorry, I can't help it.