What Bruce Has To Say about the Darkness

Posted by The Saint on February 25, 2004 @ 17:13

THE DARKNESS WIN THE SPRINT, NOT THE MARATHON

It's been a while since I publicly vented my spleen RE The Darkness. The last time I gave them a less-than-flattering review, they had a minion ring up publication concerned to whinge about the nasty journalist who refused to toe the line by joining in the glowing plaudits then being showered on the band. Oh, how we laughed.

However, the fact that they became an accessory to daylight robbery by snatching three Brits Awards away from far more deserving bands has forced me to enter rant mode again. (Note to Head Of 6 Music: expect an imminent phone call.)

To be honest, who cares what the self-masturbatory pop smoozefest that is the Brits and its organisers think about music anyway? They have only just this year managed to recognise the UK's proud heritage of spawning groundbreaking acts like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath by belatedly creating a Best Rock Act award. The Grammys have had a number of rock categories for over a decade.

No, what really got me foaming at the mouth was an interview the insufferably smug Justin Hawkins gave to Channel 4 News, in which he was asked how he felt about Lemmy calling The Darkness "a cabaret act". (Personally, I think the Lemster got his c-words mixed up and really meant to call them "a comedy act".) Justin¹s petulant response was to say that Lemmy was just jealous and that The Darkness had sold more records than Motorhead had in their entire career.

Now, I have no idea how many records The Darkness have sold, but seeing as they are still playing club and theatre shows in Europe, (despite their protestations) have not cracked the American market yet and indeed not even headlined a UK arena tour, I find that very hard to believe. And arithmetic aside, does that mean that when the members of The Darkness wake in the early hours, full of self-doubt and wondering, 'Yes ­ but are we actually any good?', they reassure themselves by counting their album sales?

And what would sales matter anyway, when one considers that Lemmy has more rock'n'roll attitude in his discarded toenail clippings than The Darkness have in their collective miserable combo? We're talking icons here. Will young girls be buying The Darkness t-shirts in Top Shop 20 years hence? I think not.

This is after all a band who have only released one album ­ and in recent years, the rock market has been littered with casualties who had a big hit with their debut, but found that by the time they released the follow-up, their fans had moved on.

My advice to The Darkness is to keep touring on their current wave of popularity and defer the release of the Difficult Second Album as long as they can. The problem with being flavour of the month is that you can go out as fashion just as fast as you rose to fame.

And we all know what happens to bands past their sell-by date. Yes - they end up in cabaret.

Source:BBC6 Val's Rock Report

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