I appreciate the analytical approach to this. I’ve always thought it was strange how much they’re hated. I don’t love their music, but at worst it seems unremarkable, with a few relatively decent songs thrown in.
I read once - I don’t know if it’s true - that there was a compilation CD made of a bunch of Metal bands (a marketing thing), and they put Nickelback song on it for some strange reason. Metal fans were outraged, and every time the CD was discussed, someone would say that Nickelback sucks, which contributed significantly. That would be another case of #4 on the list, if true.
that’s interesting because #4 is the famous example of the Brian Posehn joke, and he’s actually a metal head. So if that’s true it’s possibly the origin of why he even used them for the joke.
Oh, interesting tie
Blame ClearChannel. Nickelback emerged near the peak of one company fucking up commercial radio throughout the US. This new band played inoffensive pop-alternative-country melange, seeming broadly acceptable to everyone without exciting much of anyone. Their image was squeaky-clean while their conventionally attractive frontman looked vaguely rugged. All very saleable, but aggressively generic.
So: take an audience at peak rude irony. (This is the era of Celebrity Deathmatch, “Mike Tyson ate my balls,” and Game.com ads calling their customers morons.) Subject them to the same middling singles over and over. Ask how they feel about this merely okay experience taking up air time that could easily be Destiny’s Child, Third Eye Blind, or Shania Twain. Try not to act surprised when they smirk and say they hope the entire band dies.
People hate Nickelback because it’s fun to hate Nickelback. It is easy and rewarding to hate Nickelback. Everyone knew about them, but nobody was a diehard fan. You could perform ingroup bonding with nearly anyone by saying “Fuck Nickelback, right?” You could privately grumble about hearing “How You Remind Me” for the dozenth time this week, without any baggage like Creed’s religion-bait popularity or various artists’ public feuds. Hating Nickelback is uncomplicated. To this day, I have no goddamn idea what Chad Kroeger is like, or what he’s into, or what he’s done. But I still knew his name without checking.
And nobody’s replaced them. Rampant piracy deepened people’s musical tastes by letting them choose what to listen to, instead of the constant deluge of lowest-common-denominator payola. Streaming later made it polite and acceptable to pay artists nothing. Meanwhile, internet forums and thousand-channel cable packages allowed culture to splinter. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a Taylor Swift song. I don’t care, and I don’t have to. Having any reputation become memetic like this is obscenely unlikely now. To have that reputation be… mediocre? Unthinkable.
You also can’t discount the trend nickleback was the successor to. The 90s saw punk turn to grunge and gen x was telling the whole world they didn’t care. The frontmen at the center of the bands were so disillusioned from the inside that they were all dropping like flies while living people’s supposed dreams. It was very much an anti-establishment music movement expressed through self-sabotage and recklessness. That was then co-opted by, yes, clearchannel (now “Iheartradio.” Barf.) and turned into “post grunge.” This is your Stainds, your creeds, your PODs, and yes, your nicklebacks. Co-opting the sound with none of the attitude, none of the principled self destruction. If anything, they took the look and sound and made it a corporate forcefeeding. They are emblematic of so many things wrong music industry, while it’s direct predecessor was screaming and dying over what was wrong with the culture and the music industry. The music industry responded by prying that aesthetic off the corpses of music icons, cleansing it, and making it corpo-friendly. Kurt and Layne would’ve died all over again if they lived to see this shit.
That was then co-opted by, yes
C’mon, Keys To Ascension chased some trends, but it wasn’t-- oh I see.
Blink-182 was similarly emblematic but had none of the backlash. Some dorks found a properly talented drummer and turned pop-punk into juvenile dick jokes. This was a huge step down from its previous focus on erudite sociopolitical dick jokes.
Jonas Čeika has a video essay on Adorno’s critique of television… via the Emoji Movie. Adorno argues that any system worth hand-waving as “the system” cannot comprehend anything besides reinforcement of that system. Even direct populist rebellion simply gets treated as another valid path to a predefined outcome within that system. And that works. These power structures are effective and resilient. That’s how they became a problem.
I can tell you exactly why I hate Nickelback. All of their songs sound the same, and that song sucks.
I’ve actually thought about this more than I should. To me, Nickelback has a lot in common with Taylor Swift. Their songs use a formula that is almost universally liked. It’s like an AI analyzed all musical hits in history and spit out “Rules for a hit song” that they both follow.
For example, one pattern I’ve noticed is the choruses often use a pattern of [Looooong note. Loooooong note.][Short short short short short note]. Their biggest hits all have this. People seem to love it.
Anyways, my point is it’s enjoyable but formulaic music. The difference is that Taylor Swift’s image embraces this more. She’s pure pop, dance, love-song. Nickelback, however, tried to advertise themselves as a serious rock band. I think people sense the dissonance and have been angered.
Nickelback is just shitty post-grunge pearl jam clone number 78645. Every single one of these bands was terrible. Nickelback was just one of the more visible versions of this late 90s Clearchannel sanitized corporate rock bullshit.
I was of the opinion, it’s because of that comedy skit. They are boring, repetitive, bland and overplayed, but so are other bands. They just had bad luck with that comedy skit. I’m not excusing the band, I personally don’t like them, and heard they are jackasses.
I’m unsure where everyone is from, but as a Canadian from a semi small town… there’s laws about radio, 1/3 of all music must be Canadian.
Smaller towns have about 5 stations, rock, pop, country, CBC and Jesus…
It has happened with every single band / artist in my lifetime, Celine, Rush, Shania, the Hip, Avril and Nickelback… Those 3 stations find a reason any of those artists fit into their category and then all you hear for months, every third song is Nickelback and it drives you full mad.
Sometimes I worry that our annoyance spread with their popularity outside of Canada, and Michigan did steal our accent, so they might have borrowed some of the Nickelback hate too.
On a brighter note, I don’t instantly change stations when they come on the classic rock station anymore, so maybe the world will forgive them in time :)
TLDR - Canadian radio is like BBC1, same 5 songs on repeat
I hate Rockstar, Photograph and most of their music that used to get a lot of airplay, I really like songs like Side of a Bullet, Burn it to the Ground, Animals, etc. and I’m indifferent too most of the rest of their catalog. I don’t hate or love them they just are.
They’re kinda depressing to listen to. I’ll stick with Power Metal.
It’s ‘out of touch Step-Dad Rock’
I like How You Remind Me, Photograph, Savin’ Me, Someday, Too Bad. I, for one, certainly don’t hate them
Circle jerk, wanting to belong and the good old “making fun of someone else to try to be cool”. Just like fucking high school.
