Canadian NASCAR Rock

rmthunter · #1 06-28-2008, 01:52 PM

Can someone explain to me why it's so fashionable to trash Nickelback? I've always liked them, and recently got a copy of "All the Right Reasons," which is a kick-a$$ album. And more than half the comments I see about them are pretty negative.

magenta321 · #2 06-28-2008, 05:34 PM

I've never heard anyone trash them. But, fwiw, I haven't been that impressed with their songs except "Figured You Out." I think what I like most about that song is its lyrics. I haven't heard anything new from them in a while, or if I did, it didn't sink in. Off the top of my head "Some Day" is the most recent song I can think of from them (I could be totally wrong -- but that's the only song that's coming to mind as being more recent). If that is the most recent song, could it be that it was completely overplayed?

I never really got why Winger was trashed either

Maybe jealousy

magenta321 · #3 06-28-2008, 05:37 PM

Oh yeah, Rockstar.

I didn't like that one particularly either. Reminds me too much of some twangy country guy. Country never spoke to me. My father LOVES that song, however. He has it on his phone.

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #4 06-28-2008, 05:51 PM

FWIW, I think it is an official Kiss Of Death for a rock group if the father of a 20-something friend of mine has a particular group's song as his ringtone. Sort of like I knew break dancing music was dead when my dad started listening to break dancing movie scores on his van's cassette player.

magenta321 · #5 06-28-2008, 06:59 PM

Well, with that particular song (Rockstar) , in the video you can see they're reaching for every demographic... they reached to my dad by putting Gene Simmons, Billy Gibbons and Ted Nugent on there. I think from a marketing prospective, that gives someone like my dad an endorsement from some "older" rockers that he admires that it's ok for him to like this "new" group. They reached to probably every generation on that video, and gave every generation an endorsement from someone they are familiar with and probably to some extent admire. Plus they threw in some skanky women which keeps the men watching.

I rewatched the video a bit ago to see why I personally didn't like the song. It's the nearly monotone vocals.
Each line sounds the same as the first.
Each line sounds the same as the first.
Each line sounds the same as the first.
Each line sounds the same as the first until he changes it up like this.

That's just my personal take. They're obviously very popular, or there would be no reason for people to 1. know them and 2. "trash" them. So, tons of people out there like them

rmthunter · #6 06-28-2008, 07:50 PM

Actually, I have heard that they get a lot of radio play (since I don't listen to the radio any more, I don't know first-hand), so I guess people could get pretty sick of them.

I like "Rockstar" -- it's funny -- they may not have intended it as satire, which stretches the imagination a bit, but I take it that way. My favorite, though, is "Far Away," with "Here Comes the Next Contestant" as a close runner up. All from the All the Right Reasons album, which I think is their best.

It's all such unabashed redneck stuff, you can't help but love it.

brian_igo · #7 06-29-2008, 12:30 AM

Quote:

rmthunter said

Can someone explain to me why it's so fashionable to trash Nickelback? I've always liked them, and recently got a copy of "All the Right Reasons," which is a kick-a$$ album. And more than half the comments I see about them are pretty negative.

They've always seemed like a generic alt rock band to me. I'd put them in the same class as Limp Bizkit or Bush. Not bad to listen to, but nothing sticks either. Radio fluff.

I think smacking them around became fashionable with the "How You Remind Me Of Someday" plagiarism thing with their first hit album. They made it a lot worse for themselves with the snotty way they responded to it.

rmthunter · #8 06-29-2008, 07:55 AM

Aha! It's not the music, it's the celebrity surround. Thanks for the link. I'd never heard that story, but then, I'm not one for following the history of popular music (unless I'm writing about it). Basically, I don't get the whole controversy -- composers re-use material. They have ever since there have been composers (check out Mozart's late works, Brahms, Mahler, Barber, just for starters). So this is news exactly how? Especially with popular songs, which are so formally restricted anyway, it's no wonder that they start to sound alike -- it's like there are five allowable chord progressions in popular music and four bass lines, and that's it. I'm very serious about that, under the hyperbole -- vernacular forms tend not to be very adventurous. That's not what they're about. I don't know that I could listen to eight bars and say "That's Nickelback," but then I probably couldn't do that with Arvo Part, either. (Well, Part maybe.) How much music is that distinctive to begin with unless it's a theme you know? It seems that in popular music, "generic" is sort of built in.

I don't get the "snotty" part -- this kid either a) doesn't know much about music, or b) has an axe to grind, or c) both. Their response, from that article at least, seems fairly restrained to me.

I don't think I agree with you on the "nothing sticks" idea, but that's so subjective it's hardly worth discussing. Some terrific songs on All the Right Reasons, as far as I'm concerned, including a couple I can't get out of my head. Of course, I've had times when I couldn't get some pretty dreadful stuff out of my head, so maybe that doesn't prove anything.

I don't get the idea that you can't be good unless you're completely original: no one seems to be able to even describe "original," much less define it. (See under "generic" above.)

OK -- it's entirely possible I'm off my nut, but I think Nickelback may not be the greatest band ever, but they're not mediocre at all and have done some really excellent work -- Kroeger has a kind of urgency and intensity to his vocals that not many singers achieve, and the group puts some really rich sound behind those vocals, which is something that appeals to me a lot. All the Right Reasons is a pretty high-level collection, and what I've heard of their other stuff, which is basically Silver Side Up and maybe one or two singles may not be up to that level, but I can find much worse stuff on any top 40 station.

Besides, it's great dance music.