What decade is this?

It's rare for me to stay up late and watch an entire Late Show with David Letterman. Usually, I'm not really interested in who the guest is, the musical act at the end of the show isn't worth staying up for, or I'm tired and I want to go to bed. However, a month or so ago I happened to watch an entire show. I didn't intentionally watch the whole thing because of who was on it... it just happened. But, I'm kind of glad I did because of the musical group that was on: The Darkness. This was my first encounter with this group and I thought they were pretty interesting to put it mildly. They made enough of an impression on me to remember the name of the group, the name of the song, the tune of the song, some of the lyrics, and what they looked like. I can sit through a 30 second commercial and five seconds later can't remember what product was being advertised so it is huge for me to remember this much.

Then, the other day I turned off my CD player in my car and turned on the local Top 40 radio station. The next song was "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" by The Darkness which was the same song they played on Letterman. I never thought I would ever hear this song again because I thought it was so ridiculous and here it was on the top 9 at 9:00. What is this world coming to? So, I had to find them on the good ol' WWW and see if this is for real or find out if I'm living in the Twilight Zone.

When I see and hear this band I have to ask myself, "Is this really the year 2004?" The Darkness seems like they took a time machine from mid-70's through the mid-80's to the present. They're like Queen meets REO Speedwagon meets Led Zeppelin (minus the coolness of Led Zepplin). Take a look at a couple of their videos* (I Believe in a Thing... and Get Your Hands Off...) and you'll see what I mean. Everything about them reeks of stadium rock of the 70's and 80's.

A few things to take note of:
- High falsetto voice
- One-piece body suit complete with flared pants and exposed chest
- Emphasis on guitar solos
- Drum beat continues near the end of the song while the rest of the band claps hands in unison high above their heads
- Unrealistic concept for video which has nothing to do with the song including an alien craft and a large squid
- Long, unkempt hair reminiscent of the 70's
- Cheesy background vocals (Notice the mysterious floating heads not unlike a Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody video)
- The flames emerging from the bottom serving absolutely no purpose
- Lightning (who uses lightning anymore?)
- General skankiness of all the women who are irresistably in love with the band members

*contains some sexual content including, but not limited to, naked female mannequins placed in a compromised position