2003: #7 - "I Believe In A Thing Called Love"

Now that hipster irony has died, it's safe to listen to The Darkness without feeling like a puerile jackass. Seriously, how awful was it six years ago when folks would hype Permission to Land by calling it the perfect soundtrack to ridin' around in a Camaro, as if that were a good thing (or was it an ironically bad/cool thing?)?

In any case, coming from legitimate, non-ironic fans of "cheese-metal" (we can call it that because we actually like it, and embrace its cheesiness), "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" wasn't good because it mocked hard rock cliches, but given that it did - including the ridiculous operatic falsetto vocals, stupidly sleazy lyrics, cheesy double entendres, harmonized axe-work, Neil Diamond references (?), and dum-dum riffing of all our favorite metal bands - did it well, and had one of the best verse melodies of any hard rock song ever, it ended up being a huge success not only as a metal send-up, but as an actual metal song.