Thursday, May 31, 2012

The Beatles 'Live At The BBC'

So what’s the deal with hating Nickelback?

I’ve noticed all the Nickelback hatred for what seems like a year now and it doesn’t require hipster glasses or a micro-brew in your hand to be in the club. All it takes is any reason to pontificate on how “crappy” they are. You can diss their guitar sound. You can describe Chad Kroeger’s voice as grating. You can even say their lyrics are rather cliché without even having a grasp on the definition of cliché. You can just hate on them even though you may have seen them live and while possessing one or more MP3’s/CD’s in your musical library.

The Nickelback Haters Club seems to lack any rules. All you need is a reason that’s valid to you.

I just want to know, after years of unexplained love, why the fans have turned on them.

Is it some sort of anger issues?

Did everyone find out how mediocre Nickelback really is after spending millions of dollars to see them live and rocking out to them at parties?

I have one Nickelback CD that ended up in my collection while working for a Top 40ish radio station. We had received a bunch of them for giveaways on the air and at remotes. I had heard “Photograph” on that station and while holding a copy of the ‘All The Right Reasons’ I made a decision… Why not add it to my collection? It was free and I actually like the song “Photograph”.

I didn’t find the album any more unpleasant than Daughtry’s. With the exception of “Rockstar”, I would give the album a decent grade.

The song “Rockstar” started wearing on me from the get-go. It was ALL OVER the Top 40ish station that I was working for. I couldn’t escape it. I would work the remotes and folks would sing along with it as if it were the best thing since “Happy Birthday”. And of course, there were folks that took it upon themselves to recite right along with the deep-voice, cliché riddled guy talking between the lyrics. I just wanted to grab them and shake them until they understood how bad a song it is or until I heard something snap in the neck.

Perhaps that’s the reason… The song “Rockstar” may have swayed public opinion on Nickelback.

Right Said Fred made a great pop album, but unfortunately, no one will give anything else they recorded a shot because of “I’m Too Sexy”.

To be totally honest, I’ve never truly cared for Nickelback. I had some friends over the years talk to me about how great they are, how I should check out the new CD, how I should go see those Canadians live, blah, blah, and blah. I found them fairly derivative and just kind of dismissed them as one of those bands everyone loves but me. You know… Like U2 and Coldplay.

I never gave any of those friends the usual hell I heap upon the ill-informed because I didn’t truly hate Nickelback. I still don’t hate them.

It seems to me that the public got drunk on Nickelback and now they’re feeling the hangover.

1 comment:

  1. The "deep voice" guy is Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top. I've seen them once (I didn't pay for it) and I have all the CDs because I keep trying to like them. They have two songs. They have the "sex/degrade-the-woman" song and they have "How You Remind Me." I don't mind that one. I also don't mind "Burn it to the Ground" which is the theme song for Monday Night Raw and it's in the vein of "HYRM." "Photograph" sounds like he's just reading while music is playing.

    Live they try to put on a show but, as you said, Kroeger's voice is quite grating and I can't listen to it very long. Especially, as I said, it's basically two songs. So I don't like them. I think they suck. I was one of the ones that "Liked" the pickle more than Nickelback.

    ReplyDelete