About a year and a half ago, when the Darkness's "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" was all over the place, a friend asked me if I thought the band was joking. I replied, "Maybe, but don't you like jokes?" One of the many, many ways that Nirvana ruined white rock and roll is that, since 1991, American rock fans are suspicious of levity. Not only is it inconceivable that a band could consider the paradigm of late-'70s–'80s metal as something other than deeply incorrect (and don't get me started on the implicit class bias therein), but a band that likes a laugh in public is to... More >>>