I regret not seeing Panic! at the Disco and My Chemical Romance when they were on tour before they became huge. After all, while they looked like the kinds of bands I’d like, I hadn’t actually heard anything by them and I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Now I regret not going as they’re both great.
Sometimes, that is true. There is a kind of vibe that calls for the hatred of trendy, cool things. But I think Nickelback (and other popular bands) are disliked for reasons other than knee-jerk dismissal of all things popular. Let me explain my point of view…
There are a lot of bands, musical artists and so forth, who don’t get regular airplay on radio or TV or whatever. A lot of these artists are very talented, sometimes (at least in the perception of the listener) more talented than the top 40 acts that are making the big bucks and going on tour. Myself, I have maybe 10 or 11 bands that I think deserve recognition more than Nickelback, because these bands are inventive and creative and just plain different from what you normally hear on the radio. I can’t fault Nickelback for being formulaic, mind you; they’re doing something that works for them, they’re selling records and doing concerts and all that, so they found something that works for them. But to me it’s like eating chicken broth when I could have something that was whipped up by an Iron Chef. Chicken broth is still passable, but I’d rather be challenged.
I couldn’t agree more. Most of my problem with Nickelback in general is their cheesy rhyming.
Oh, I don’t care. Nickelback is the logical commercialized evolution of post-grunge alt rock. Therefore, it’s become one of those bands it’s “cool” to hate on (even though someone is buying all those CDs and MP3 downloads).
You can see them now that they’ve faded back into obscurity.
And now innumerable bands are trying to be Nickelback. It sort of kills me to think that Creed could technically be considered one of the “most influential” bands of my teenage years.
Eh, I don’t think Nickelback is anything like Creed, at all really, except that they both aren’t very good bands.
What bands do you think are “trying to be like Nickelback” in the sense of emulating their sound/approach rather than simply hoping to cash in on the level of success Nickelback has had?
I don’t find Nickelback to be influential in any sense of the term.
Seen the former. Not sure the latter would exactly be described as having “faded into obscurity” since a good portion of my online friends are independently looking forward to their next album coming out next week. Of course it is an open question of whether they will try and fail to sell out large arenas (they’re definitely not above those venues and at the stadium level), or try and succeed to do the same, or move back down to smaller arenas. But they’re not going to go back to house-of-blues mid-sized venues any time soon.
Oh god that’s sort of true. Damn kids! If you’re going to be derivative, be original, dammit! 
You know those bands/movies/books/whathaveyou that no one admits to actually liking, yet they still somehow are the biggest thing in the world? That’s Nickelback. Everyone hates that guy. So much so that they’ll secretly buy the album the second its released.
“How you remind me” was a decent albeit whiny post-grunge rock song. Nothing special and about as innovative as a cheese sandwich. It was also released over 9 years ago and they’re still coasting on that. But a lot of people like a cheese sandwich now and again.
Or more accurately, over and over.
My wife is a big fan. Knows every word to EVERY song. I have been to see them live twice as a result. They put on a good show.
I’m not ashamed to admit it.
The fans that I know aren’t afraid to admit it. Most of them never hear bad music or have seen a bad movie though.
I like a half-dozen of their songs despite being accused by a few friends of being a hipster and not listening to commercial radio. It’s just fun music to me.
Exactly. My first thought was that their music sounded like it was written by a computer program, with design input provided by market analysts and Mark “Keg Killer” Jenkins from Delta Phi Whatever.
I actually did a review of Silver Side Up on Amazon.
The problem is something I’ve seen a lot of times. The big hits (How You Remind Me, Someday, If Everyone Cared, etc.) are great listening, but just about everything else is at best completely forgettable. Somehow, they just do not have the talent, or drive, or motivation, or focus to produce more than one good song every so often.
That’s the crux of it, really: A lot of times the main reason a band is hated is simply because it’s hung around way too long. If Kurt Cobain hadn’t died, I could have very easily seen Nirvana going down the same path.
snip.
I don’t know about that. Nirvana showed a progression in their sound on each album. After the success of the unplugged set, Cobain was experimenting with a lot of sounds and material that was fairly out there for the time. I think it more likely for them to have burned out into metallica territory, putting out albums that were further and further from the sound that garnered them the success but still remaining commercially viable.
Man, I don’t know about that. Nirvana was the antithesis of Metallica in the 1990’s. Metallica became a corporate machine in those days and put out craptastic sellout music. Cobain always had integrity issues with the level of his band’s success, and never wanted the band to be perceived as a sellout, which is what Metallica became.
The fact that Nickelback was always a corporate machine isn’t really relevant. Soulless cash whores are OK by me if their intentions are clear from the outset. Metallica betrayed me and many others. OK, that’s pretty dramatic, but still.
I agree.
Oh and I agree with this too. I never cared for any of their stuff. To me, they give off this dorky, wannabe tough guy vibe. There’s worse music out there, but that doesn’t make me dislike Nickelback any less. I just don’t think their songs have anything good about them. I don’t pick which art or entertainment I enjoy based on what’s cool, but the entire concept of “heavy pop” just reeks of uncoolness. This probably explains why they get made fun of so much. Nickelback are the Jonas Brothers, but they don’t realize it.
Mandatory Futurama quote- “I’ll be the judge of who’s cool, using the coolometer! My God! He’s scoring nearly 10,000 megafonzies!”