![the darkness album i believe in a thing the darkness album i believe in a thing](https://images.recordsale.de/256/256/the-darkness-vs-sfb_i-believe-in-a-thing-called-love_1.jpg)
In fact, the band nailed its aesthetic so thoroughly right out of the gate that it had nowhere to go but down.Īnd down the Darkness went first, with 2005’s overblown and underperforming (although actually fairly enjoyable) One Way Ticket to Hell… And Back, and then a year later with Hawkin’s departure (attributed to a massive cocaine addiction, natch). The LP is loaded, front-to-back, with power pop anthems (“Friday Night”, “Givin’ Up”), sweeping power ballads (“Love is Only a Feeling”, “Holding My Own”), and headbangers (“Black Shuck”, “Love on the Rocks with No Ice”). Even if we ignore the band’s sensational success overseas, Permission to Land was – and remains – a great album. I bristle when people describe the band as a one-hit wonder though. I’m not going to say being on a college campus at the time felt exactly like this year’s Samsung Super Bowl commercial, but it wasn’t far off. (Oh the early 2000s…)īy the following spring, these concerns were pretty much moot, as the band’s third single “I Believe In a Thing Called Love” was damn near ubiquitous. Reception in the States was slightly more reserved, with hipsters paralyzed by doubts of, first, whether to take the band seriously, and, second, whether they could – gasp – unironically enjoy cock rock so heavily influenced by AC/DC and KISS. It was in those summer months that Justin Hawkins and company unleashed Permission to Land, an album which would go straight to number two on the UK charts and eventually hold on to the top spot for a month, on the way to selling 1.5 million copies in the UK alone. It did happen, of course, in the face of all reasonable expectations, in the faraway land of 2003.
#THE DARKNESS ALBUM I BELIEVE IN A THING FULL#
The open-chested catsuits, the spacecraft-humping interstellar octopus, the falsetto (oh my God, so much falsetto): I didn’t fall asleep listening to Queen’s A Night at the Opera on a stomach full of absinth again, did I? These four Brits really did take a love for the theatrical rock of the late 70s/early 80s, combine it with an absurdist sense of humor, and sell millions of records? Some nights I wake up in a cold sweat, alone, confused, scared, wondering: “Did the Darkness really happen?” It did.
![the darkness album i believe in a thing the darkness album i believe in a thing](https://i.discogs.com/B8GrTSbDHNrVxi7C7Bi4HDD7UeIsiqSFupbzCIDXz1A/rs:fit/g:sm/q:40/h:300/w:300/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTE0MTcy/NTMtMTM2NTQxNDA5/MS0zOTIwLmpwZWc.jpeg)
All words: Philip Runco with Eamon Redmond