The Darkness -Growing on Me - The Darkness -Growing on Me

2003

The Darkness -Growing on Me - The Darkness -Growing on Me (2003) Director: Alex Smith Era: Early 2000s Glam-Rock Revival (2003) - British hard rock renaissance period marked by theatrical excess, retro-glam aesthetics, and ironic bombast during the post-Britpop rock resurgence High curatorial value as a commercially successful, culturally significant artefact of the British glam-rock revival. The video's blend of practical creature effects, sci-fi narrative, and comic theatricality is technically distinctive for its budget tier and era. Its chart performance (#11 UK), Brit Award context, and role in the Permission to Land campaign make it essential for any archive covering early-2000s British rock or music video comedy aesthetics. Context: Released 16 June 2003 as the second single from The Darkness's debut album Permission to Land, 'Growing on Me' arrived at a moment of acute cultural debate about rock's mainstream viability in the post-nu-metal, post-Britpop landscape. The Darkness's unapologetic embrace of 1970s glam bombast, Queen, AC/DC, early Aerosmith, was widely read as either sincere revivalism or ironic pastiche, a productive ambiguity that fuelled their commercial breakthrough. The single peaked at number 11 on the UK Singles Chart and the album would go on to sell over 1.3 million copies in the UK, certified quadruple platinum, earning the band three Brit Awards in 2004. The video's lurid sci-fi creature comedy reinforced the band's self-aware theatricality and distinguished them visually from contemporaries. Director notes: The video employs a continuous sci-fi comedy narrative: a spaceship is attacked by a pterodactyl before landing and dispensing pods containing child versions of each band member. The children travel to a large country estate where they age into their adult selves. The band then performs across the estate grounds with numerous comedic set-pieces. The spaceship visual motif was reused as a recurring prop across multiple Darkness single videos from the Permission to Land campaign. Photography was handled by Patrick Ford; audio production by Pedro Ferreira.