"The Darkness are a rock band that see the silliness in rock bands. Massive, inherent difference. For a start, they just wouldn't have shifted the number of records they do if it was all just a larf"
That's true. The point I was trying to get is that there was no way you were going to get the serious / silly thing unless you had an affection for the genre so that you can actually see the line. Otherwise to the hair/pomp-phobic The Darkness would look / sound no different than Nelson, Poison, Warrant or Winger.