The Darkness — “I Believe in a Thing Called Love”

60 Songs That Explain the '90s

The Ringer

Music

4.7 • 849 Ratings

🗓️ 4 March 2026

⏱️ 102 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

There is a select handful of people who were never meant to step foot into an office due to their proclivity to screw around. Just like we sent Rob packing to Ohio to bother no one but himself, Lowestoft, England shipped us The Darkness. During the post-grunge era when rock was murkily defined, we were gifted front man and lead singer Justin Hawkins on a silver platter (his manager’s shoulders) to give us crude operatic hair metal ballads. This week, Rob discusses, “I Believe in a Thing Called Love,” a song that proves if you dive head first into cheesiness, it becomes ironic and cool. Later, he is joined by Jill Hopkins who talks about the experience of watching The Darkness live and then comparing that to the people who feel confident enough to sing The Darkness at karaoke. Host: Rob Harvilla Producers: Justin Sayles and Olivia Crerie Additional Video Editing: Kevin Pooler Guest: Jill Hopkins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I have not worked in an office in 13 years.
0:12.0	I work exclusively at home, in near total isolation and in sweatpants, mumbling to myself and enjoying very little in-person social
0:23.6	contact outside of my immediate family and that's all very much for the best I am
0:29.2	isolated for my own protection and for the protection of others why did I stop
0:35.8	working in an office, you ask? Oh, various reasons. Various noble and
0:43.3	ignoble reasons. One ignoble reason I started working exclusively at home is that one time at my last
0:50.6	office job, I was reprimanded by HR for emailing everyone in our office the
0:58.5	YouTube link to an Aerosmith video.
1:03.1	Let me answer your first question.
1:05.0	I'm alone. Yeah, I don't know if I can face that.
1:13.6	Yeah, whatever Aerosmith video you were thinking of, I didn't send that one.
1:19.6	Wasn't loving an elevator or crazy or pink or dude looks like a lady.
1:25.6	No, I emailed all my coworkers the video for Angel.
1:30.3	An electrifying power ballad off the 1987 Aerosmith comeback album, Permanent Vacation.
1:37.3	Angel, a relatively wholesome, chaste, soaring, transcendent, majestic, piano-driven power ballad.
1:46.3	Frontman Stephen Tyler is not actually singing while stranded on the surface of the moon.
1:51.5	That is a state-of-the-art in 1987's special effect.
1:56.6	I'm in tears, and the crying that I do is for you.
2:07.6	Yeah, it's 2012 or so, and I'm wearing jeans and working in the San Francisco office of a music streaming service
2:14.6	that got totally obliterated by the existence of Spotify.
2:20.4	It's a tough break.
2:21.3	I was the managing editor, which is not a real job title at a technology company.
	...

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