Defend the Indefensible: Nickelback... (Can it be done)

THE INCREDIBLE HULKINGTON

http://www.sleepfoundation.org/publications/img/yawn.gif

...actually mike kroeger worked at starbucks here in vancouver[right across from the store i worked at].hence where the name came from. he was/is a helluva nice guy too.

you might only get one or two singles on the radio but they sort of symbolize a certain sort of western canadianness to me, maybe a more rural western canadianness, the part that's bad. or, maybe something a little less important, like a localized version of the tragically hip but able to get their songs on mtv. i'm not sure.

i don't think their songs are that bad.

But Duel was genius!

for a while I kept turning on MTV just as the "Someday" video was ending with that close up on the newspaper with the Man Dies In Tragic Bridge Accident headline, and I kept wondering what the hell the video was about. I finally saw the whole thing the other day, and I'm still a little confused about it.

Hey, It's the best I could come up with on such short notice!

In 1997, one of my friends was listening to the Backstreet Boys.

In 2004, she currently listens to Nickelback.

I think that speaks volumes.

Oh yeah, and Lord Custos? Norteño is pretty fucking indefensible. Sez me, Miss Latina. All those oomp-oompas? Might as well drag out the worst of the polka records.

... ummm...damn!...

...I can't think of any!

note how completely similar these songs are?

http://www.nintendorks.com/brandon/archives/000475.php

m.

AH WAWNA BE A RAWK STAW-UH

noone's actually willing to do what the thread's asking for, so I'll go in:

as far as nu-grunge radio bands go, they're a solid singles act. I mean, seriously, compare them to someone completely irredeemable like Three Days Grace or Trapt, and they're pretty damn tolerable. my top 5 would be: 1. Photograph 2. Figured You Out 3. the Spiderman song w/ the Saliva dude 4. Leader Of Men 5. Animals

wait their first single's good.
they used to play that and "ugly" on mtv2 like no other vidoes existed.

I secretly like the Rock Star song

I could do without the Billy-Gibbons-as-hypeman though

"Animal"

I, I'm driving black on black
Just got my license back
I got this feeling in my veins this train is coming off the track
I'll ask polite if the devil needs a ride
Because the angel on my right ain't hanging out with me tonight
I'm driving past your house while you were sneaking out
I got the car door opened up so you can jump in on the run
Your mom don't know that you were missing
She'd be pissed if she could see the parts of you that I've been kissing
Screamin'

CHORUS
No, ain't never gonna quit
Ain't nothing wrong with it
Just acting like we're animals
No, no matter where we go
'Cause everybody knows
We're just a couple animals

So come on baby, get in
just get in, just get in
Check out the trouble we're in

You're beside me on the seat
Got your hand between my knees
And you control how fast we go by just how hard you wanna squeeze
It's hard to steer when you're breathing in my ear
But I got both hands on the wheel while you got both hands on my gears
By now, no doubt that we were heading south
I guess nobody ever taught her not to speak with a full mouth
'Cause this was it, like flicking on a switch
It felt so good I almost drove into the ditch
[Animals lyrics on http://www.metrolyrics.com]

I'm screamin'

CHORUS

So come on baby, get in
just get in, just get in
Check out the trouble we're in

We were parked out by the tracks
We're sitting in the back
And we just started getting busy
When she whispered "what was that?"
The wind, I think 'cause no one else knows where we are
And that was when she started screamin'
"That's my dad outside the car!"
Oh please, the keys, they're not in the ignition
Must have wound up on the floor while
we were switching our positions
I guess they knew that she was missing
As I tried to tell her dad it was her mouth that I was kissing
Screamin'

CHORUS

So come on baby, get in
We're just a couple animals
Get in, just get in
Ain't nothing wrong with it
Check out the trouble we're in
we're just a couple animals0
Get in, just get in

http://www.youporn.com/watch/9486

How did Roadrunner approve that video treatment?

From country and metal rolling threads, earlier this summer:

And yeah, I mentioned Nickelback. Somehow a copy of All The Right Reasons mysteriously fell into my lap this week -- an album which I believe has sold something like 5.9 million copies so far and is at something like #12 on Billboard's album chart after something like 93 weeks, and which an Internet search suggests has spawned something like seven hit singles (or "airplay tracks", or whatever -- "Photograph," "Animal," "Far Away," "Savin' Me," "If Everyone Cared," "Rockstar," "Side Of a Bullet" -- only a couple if which I remotely recognized, but then again I almost never listen to the radio these days, and even if I did I seriously doubt I'd ever brave putting on a commercial "active rock" station.) Anyway, out of curiosity and/or professional responsibilty, I decided to play the darn thing, having never consciously listened to Nickelback before in my life. And my verdict is: I don't totally hate it. Just most of it. Favorite cut is undoubtedly "Photograph," the power ballad, which is no Def Leppard but which is still about yearning for the small town arcade and high school the singer (whose old self would hate him now) says he never graduated from and wonders if they'd let him back in; really, a country-rock guy like Jack Ingram (who redid Hinder's "Lips Of An Angel" and made me like it) should cover this in a less plodding way, and it might sound really good. I also don't hate "Animals," which is probably the least plodding song on the album (actually kind of speedy), and also turns out to be about, uh, getting a blowjob while driving a car fast ("Got your head between your knees/Got both hands on the wheel," jeesh). And "Next Contestant," which I'm kind of surprised isn't a "hit" since it's pretty catchy in a Stabbing Westward bubblegum-Nine Inch Nails way, has the singer daring guys to hit on his girlfriend again so he can beat them up, what an asshole. "Rockstar," a very vaguely Southern rock midetempo, actually tries to have a sense of humor about wanting to be a rock star (with, you know, drug dealers on speed dail, getting washed up singers to write all the songs, staying skinny because you never eat) but of course Chad Kroeger moans it with no sense of humor at all -- maybe I'd like it okay if Joe Walsh sang it. (He could even get the Shop Boys to back him up, maybe). And "Someone That You're With" is clearly about being jealous of the guy she's with, duh. Honestly, in total, the topics of the songs are pretty easy to figure out most of the time, which does count for something. But most of the rest is the expected constipated bleh -- "loud mush," as Chris Cook once called Pearl Jam, but in a fifth or sixth generation version. (I was surprised to note on AMG that Nickelback have a bunch of albums, too -- Shows how much I've paid attention to them over the years; for all I knew, this could've been their debut record. As is, though, it almost counts as a Greatest Hits.)

-- xhuxk, Sunday, 22 July 2007 13:25 (1 month ago)

Actually, her head is between Chad's knees, not her own.

-- xhuxk, Sunday, July 22, 2007 2:43 PM (1 month ago)

Favorite cut is undoubtedly "Photograph," the power ballad

Isn't that a bit meaningless? I don't think I've heard a Nickelback song that isn't a power ballad.

they also have "metal" songs about blowjobs

Oh, and I secretly like "Rockstar", too, but the Hey Dude! voiceovers are kind of essential, especially when he says "I'll have a quesadilla, HAHA!"

I guess I haven't heard the metal blowjobs.

they are probably the last band on earth i'd defend

I love this current cultural thread (Nickelback, Shop Boyz) of people joking about what people imagine rock stars live like because the rock stars on TV (Ozzy, Dave Navarro, Travis Barker) act like douchebags. Like neither one of those songs could exist without reality TV, I think...

Also, I'll have a quesadilla.

I'd defend Nickelback before I defended dozens of bands that operate on the hipster radar. Here's looking at you, Bright Eyes.

The weird thing about "Rockstar" is that it's pretty hard to tell where the layer of irony in the lyrics begins and where it ends. Like, is he mocking what average people think a rockstar lifestyle is life, or is he describing his own life fairly accurately? This is a guy who's kind of inordinately proud of his own songwriting, so the line about having washed up singers write all his songs is the big clue that there's an ironic distance, but I also think he wants to be seen as more badass and hedonistic than most people think of Nickelback as being.

I'm pretty sure Leonesque Kroeger doesn't actually expect anyone to believe that he has a bathroom big enough to host baseball games, so I don't think he's quite aiming for an accurate portrayal of the life of Nickelback, although there does seem to be a certain amount of wishful thinking mixed in with the ironic distance.

I dunno, dude, if anyone's going to have one gigantic house, it's a rich Canadian.

I think you couldn't be an incredibly rich cocksure arena rocker without having some amount of ironic distance and some amount of douchebag bravado. The part about "Rockstar" I love is--like a lot of rap songs--you can't tell where one begins and one ends.

I love the lyrics to "Rockstar," it really does add so much flesh to Kroeger's brand of unlistenable buttrock. I was kinda floored when he suggested that the music of his peers is ghostwritten and lipsynched too, that's some balls. But, alas, the song is crippled by Nickelback's crushing inability to rock. If you're going to make a parody of hairmetal-y party rock, it should like hairmetal party rock, dammit.

Basically, all this guy's songs should be about choking women during sex. His sound is just too fucking ugly to be about anything else. Hell, his FACE is too fucking ugly to be about anything else. I came to a realization the other day that Nickelback is turning into the '00s Journey, and that's so fucking not cool. Journey's sound is perfectly polished stuff, shiny and wonderful. Nickelback just sounds like someone vomiting. They need to quit with the constant power-ballads and just try to be as nasty as possible.

No one's mentioned "If Everyone Cared" yet. It's Nickelback's "Imagine," and I can't think of anything less suited for them. I mean, Kroeger is suggesting that how if everyone just dropped their weapon and started carrying flowers and cared and shared and loved and gave each other a big group hug, PEOPLE WOULD STOP DYING. That's actually in that song. I wouldn't tolerate that shit from Marvin Fucking Gaye, I'm certainly not going to take it from the shit-covered cretins of Nickelback.

Singers be using platitudes.

If you're going to make a parody of hairmetal-y party rock, it should like hairmetal party rock, dammit.

Please, there's already one Andrew W.K.

Songs from this year that are worse than "Rockstar": "Thou Shalt Always Kill", "Beautiful Girls", "D.A.N.C.E.", that's it.

Chad Kroeger looks like a lion, which is quite a cool thing to look like.

hahaehghhahhh

but he looks more like the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz than a real lion

Songs from this year that are worse than "Rockstar": "D.A.N.C.E."

OTMFM

This makes me like Nickelback a teeny bit more, but i'm not sure I ought to admit that in public...

Hero, the song wot Chad Kroeger did for Spider-Man, is a real guilty pleasure of mine. I particularly like the ultracheesy bit where all the instruments drop out and the vocal harmonies come in after the second chorus. Don't spurn me.

I've just noticed how hard it is to tell that the first word of my last post on this thread is a link...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp88K1TjN5w

After hearing their sappy new single, I've come to realize that I can't think of a single sung by Chad Kroger that I've actively hated. Some I've ignored and some I've really, really liked, but I can't remember disliking any of them.

That song will be a titty-bar standard for the rest of any of our lives.

I don't like listening to their songs, but I admire them in a Brill Building way.

if the Brill Building was a titty-bar.

Only a band like Nickelback could write a song title as funny as "Something In Your Mouth" and find a way to make it pretentious. I can almost hear a Ween song in there somewhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKCMGGN1HFo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFEEKGikG4E

Chad Kroeger has had a serious makeover, to the point of me seeing him in the video and wondering why the dubbed the real Chad Kroeger's voice over Cy Curnin from The Fixx.

serious disconnect

I like doing karaoke of Nickelback, because you can just yell the lyrics as loud as you can and it'll sound pretty good

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/Tg0ddJ65Sqc/hqdefault.jpg

http://www-movieline-com.vimg.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/daxshepard300.jpg

bwaha!

Who knew MotoGP rider Nicky Hayden was moonlighting as Nickelback's lead singer??

http://i.imgur.com/qmzTA.jpg

so the local sports talk station's "Power Trip Morning Show" has a recurring guest, this dude from the band Motion City Sountrack, a sort a b-level pop punk/emo type major label band, seems like they do ok, the are from mpls....anyway, they do that thing where they run ads for their shows with funny highlights from a recent show, etc....

anyway, i only heard the soundbite in the ad, but i take it that one of the dudes in the band (or maybe some other guy they know) is a songwriter as well for bigger rock bands....

and scene:

He's supposed to meet Chad Kroger of Nickelback at a restaurant. The meeting is about how this guy might sell some songs to Nickelback for an upcoming album. So they are talking and he gives Kroger the demo CD, etc, and Kroger is like, "Well, are you going to sing them?".....the guy says, "Well, I'd prefer if you just listen to the stuff, we're in a crowded restaurant not really comfortable doing that".....Kroger interrupts and is like "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BELIEVE IN YOUR SONGS IF YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE THE BALLS TO SING THEM RIGHT NOW??"

then, Kroger stands up, kicks over his chair and belts out LOOOOOOK AT THIS PHOOOOTOGRAAAPH/EVERYTIME I DO IT MAKES ME LAAAAUGH like LOUD AS FUCK and the whole restaurant is obviously looking at him and Kroger just struts out of the restaurant and leaves the dude sitting at the table.

I have a new favorite band

dude walks it like he talks it

god i hope it was actually butch walker at the other end of that table

tbh if i was butch walker i'd be embarrassed to sing my shit too

Bold way to dodge a check.

tbh if i was butch walker i'd be embarrassed to sing my shit too

― da croupier, Thursday, August 2, 2012 6:37 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

whaaaaaat man you should check out his solo albums

We should poll people named Chad in bands. Live had two of them!

That's a pretty funny story, but there's never been an outside songwriter on a Nickelback album - hell, Kroeger writes and produces for other people at this point (most notably Daughtry, and now Avril Lavigne, who rumors around the office suggest he's also sleeping with).

does the canadian press call them "ChAvril"?

That's a pretty funny story, but there's never been an outside songwriter on a Nickelback album - hell, Kroeger writes and produces for other people at this point (most notably Daughtry, and now Avril Lavigne, who rumors around the office suggest he's also sleeping with).

― 誤訳侮辱, Thursday, August 2, 2012 10:46 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah i was gonna say, story doesn't pass the smell test for this among several reasons. still funny to picture, though.

That's a pretty funny story, but there's never been an outside songwriter on a Nickelback album

Mutt doesn't get a credit?

I don't care if that's fake, that story is hilarious

"Dark Horse:"

All lyrics written by Chad Kroeger, all music composed by Nickelback with Robert John "Mutt" Lange on tracks 1, 4, 7, 8 and 11.

The last one had track written with the producer, too, Joey Moi. No?

that is the greatest story ever told, replacing the former greatest story, the Bible

I'm sure I've reported here before on the one time I saw Nickelback, and they interrupted their show for 15 minutes wasted firing shirts out at the crowd with t-shirt canons. It was as NASCAR as Canadians get.

They should have at least thrown in a drum solo during that time.

I'm sure I've reported here before on the one time I saw Nickelback

you misspelled "first"

Obv I have no idea if it's true, all I heard was a snippet of talk radio

Still....if we can't believe in this what can we believe in

just look at this post of m@tt's, every time i do it makes me laugh

well it says "might" have sold some songs to nickelback, maybe chad just likes to fuck with hacks

xpost to Dan, I totally would have seen the band again were they not so utterly dull and gormless. Totally unaware - or aware but not caring - of all the cliches they embody, so that it transcended self-parody.

"Chicago, you may be the best crowd we've ever heard! Let me hear you again! Yeah, that was awesome. Tonight, we want to party with you!" Then he told his roadie to order a few hundred pizzas and beer so that they can party with 10,000 of their new best friends. Or something like that. It was total school of Paul Stanley.

Did they actually go through with the pizza

every stadium band these days rips off U2

More bands should do the t-shirt cannon thing.

it would certainly be a nice gesture at those big shows where the merch stand charges $40 and up for every shirt

It would have been hilarious had every fan that caught a shirt then been handed a bill for said shirt.

Saw Merle Haggard the other night, and his t-shirts were $35!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWxaohCvQFg

Would watch.

Should be a spin-off "Guy from Creed."

D'YA WANNA HEAR SOME RRROCK'N'ROLL OR DO YA WANNA GO HOME!?

have we got any Nickelback fans in Portugal?

See ya!

"How You Remind Me" is a great song. its got at least 4 hooks. classic

The question shouldn't really be "can it be done?", more "can it be done... in Portugal?"

are hooks a universally positive attribute tho

Depends on whether or not you're a fish at the end of one, I guess.

have we got any Nickelback fans in Portugal?

― charitable remainder unitrust (crüt), Monday, February 10, 2014 5:49 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm actually quite curious about whether the Portuguese have come around to Nickelback's musical charms and nowadays buy shit-tons of their records.

Yeah, it would be incredibly funny if it got to the stage where they became the biggest band ever in Portugal while they got shit thrown at them whenever they played anywhere in the rest of the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtVU--O29oY&feature=youtu.be

Doesn't play for me

I feel like they have turned into a muscular version of Live

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtVU--O29oY

getting a real 'war pigs' vibe from those lyrics

are we entering the era of #wokenickelback?

NEVAH MADE IT AS A WISE MAHNG
COULDN'T CUT AS A POOR MAN STEALIN

They've done this before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlSYabmJuzM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK1Do-HnT9o

ashamed of my ignorance of #wokenickelback cuts tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIlNIVXpIns

every time I see it, it makes me laugh

harder riffage than i'm used to from nickelback in this new one. it's pretty enjoyable until the chorus!

I interviewed them once and they were very nice.

🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦

for the record this song sounds better than any Nickelback song I've ever heard

'this genocide took fewer lives than that genocide'

(although i agree the riff is actually... not bad?)

if I didn't know it was Nickelback I would probably say, "this song is ok"

Nickelback quite frequently bring the riffs on their album cuts. It's their singles that tend to suck the hardest.

I think it's funny that Trump has driven people into such pits of despair that they're now telling themselves "Hey, that Nickelback song...I kinda dug that."

This is my Nickelback song of choice, for the record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YIS0AJivBE

favourite nickelback story of mine:

ex of my wife worked at a record store, him and a pal from work got free tickets for a big nickelback show and went just for kicks, having no interest in the band in general

one of chad kroegers piece of banter between songs was to proclaim, as a sort of non-sequitur but maybe partly related to some song they were going to play:

"Let me tell you guys, ain't nothing finer than watching the sun come up on zoomers"

I interviewed them once and they were very nice.

― Loud guitars shit all over "Bette Davis Eyes" (NYCNative)

canadians in "very nice" shocker

There's a totally new a kind of Boomer. One who breaks retirement tradition. Increased life-expectancy has transformed "Yesterday's Yuppie" into today's ZOOMER ... boomers with zip!

These new boomers are coloring outside the lines, zig-zaging and zoooooming toward a bright new horizon chock-full of possibilities for reinventing retirement and redefining what it means to be a mature adult in the new millennium.

http://www.demko.com/cs020904b.jpg

One of my few regrets from my time at Roadrunner Records was not accepting a ticket to see Nickelback at Madison Square Garden. I don't like many of their songs, but they're supposed to be great live, in a big/loud/stupid AC/DC sort of way.

Nickelback quite frequently bring the riffs on their album cuts. It's their singles that tend to suck the hardest.

I think it's funny that Trump has driven people into such pits of despair that they're now telling themselves "Hey, that Nickelback song...I kinda dug that."

This is my Nickelback song of choice, for the record.

this track has zero riffs

One of my few regrets from my time at Roadrunner Records was not accepting a ticket to see Nickelback at Madison Square Garden. I don't like many of their songs, but they're supposed to be great live, in a big/loud/stupid AC/DC sort of way.

A buddy of mine I work with was dragged along by his wife and confirmed this. He said the backdrop alternated between American flags and footage of Aaron Rodgers throwing touchdowns.

the meme of Nickleback being terrible has almost ruined Nickleback hate for me. like it almost delegitimizes how shitty they really are.

and yet when they cover "Sad But True", Chad sounds better than James H does now

forever classic for leaving the stage while getting pelted with stuff tho

thanks for reminding me of that

It can't be done but that was fun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KzP4bC1Ypg

Angels Try to End Losing Streak With Nickelback Songs, Get Shut Out

The Angels are in the middle of a franchise-record losing streak, so they are doing anything they can to change their fortune. First, they fired their manager, Joe Maddon, replacing him with Phil Nevin. But Los Angeles lost its first game after that change.

Next, the team tried a music change. On Wednesday night against Boston, every Angels hitter walked up to a different Nickelback song to try and alter the vibe.

It didn’t work.

well, yeah

I mean if you put laxatives inside everybody's Gatorade, their play would also suffer. not sure why they thought doing the aural equivalent would yield a different result.

yeah when i heard about this i was like, "dang why they gotta mock the players MID-GAME?"

Haven’t the fans suffered enough

Jun 9, 2022
vs

Boston
9:38 pm

Angel Stadium of Anaheim
S. Ohtani
(3-4, 3.99 ERA)
N. Pivetta
(5-4, 3.50 ERA)
Tickets Starting at $1.00

and just like that, i'm an angels fan. who knew. even on stats alone, you got this one in the bag pivetta. sheesh. i'm an angels fan until they stop torturing the players with nickelback. no one deserves that sort of punishment. demoralizing and, dare i say, dehumanizing.

DON'T "`BACK" THE ANGELS.

has a nice ring to it.

At least their social media manager is still hitting home runs

FINAL: Angels 0, Red Sox 1 pic.twitter.com/GAFIAknPRM

— Los Angeles Angels (@Angels) June 9, 2022

Talked about the streak on the baseball board, Phil Nevin was trying something but picked a horrible song.

Should've used a more positive vibes song, like "All-Star"

so they ended up winning on thursday night!

and then promptly lost last night's game. big sigh. at least the losing streak was broken.

DON'T `BACK THE ANGELS!