Poll

Weekly survey: Why is Nickelback so despised?

One of the things that’s always baffled me is the universal hate that’s directed towards Nickelback. When the band first came to our attention in the late 90s, they were considered to be a very competent rock band. But somewhere around 2005 or 2006, things tipped in a weird direction. Overnight, they became The Most Hated Band in the World. Why?

I’ve always thought that Nickelback hate is way overblown and far, far out of proportion. What’s the source of this? Explain it to me.

You may or may not like the band or their music, which is fine. But what I’m looking for is an explanation for the disproportionate amount of hate and ridicule they get. There are plenty of other bands who do exactly what Nickelback does without taking the same amount of abuse.

What’s your take? And don’t just say “THEY SUCK!!!” or something similarly unhelpful. As one serious music fan to another, give me your thoughts on why so many people beat up on Nickelback.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 37969 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

65 thoughts on “Weekly survey: Why is Nickelback so despised?

  • In regards to your question about the nickleback hate. I feel like they get all this shade thrown their way due to their ability to write catchy songs with a hook that sinks into your brain with what seems relative ease. BUT they do this with the look of a boy band In a rock world, and the music has a very high production value which can come across as “no way they actually do all this without a giant team from some rich record company” kind of feel. With the genre they are writing into, this is looked down upon as “selling out” and doing it for all the wrong reasons. And they seem to explode in popularity rather quickly, which again can be be a downer if people don’t feel they “paid their dues in the biz.” I myself am a musician, but no where near a song writer. It can be frustrating to see someone waltz mindlessly into stardom with fairly basic songs. But one has to admit, their product is radio friendly, which gives producing companies the safety net to throw all their money at promoting such a band. On that note, I am not even close to a nickleback fan, but I do know some. Those people I see as nickleback fans, only have an ear for what’s jammed down their throats by promoters. And I would think you agree that this age of music is generally built upon recognition. I have never turned on a nickleback song myself, yet can recite most lyrics when I hear one. So nickleback is hugely popular riding on the back of lovers and haters alike as they are a topic of debate bringing them more publicity. The actual struggling musicians of the world hate because they are jealous and want that level of fame. They only hear the simplicity and feel “anyone could write this fluff”. As for the lovers, they love cause they don’t care about the feel or heart put in, just as long as they can sing along. Oh ya, it doesn’t help that Chad has one of those faces you wouldn’t mind catching with a quick left jab. Im interested to hear your take as well Alan. Let me know what you think. Thanks

    Cale Tiffin.

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    • Great! This is the kind of analysis I was looking for. Thank you.

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      • Their music is catchy rock that has a distinctive sound. While it is arguable that all the songs sound similar, I admit to enjoying their hits when they rotate through my playlists.

        The hate I believe is one of the earliest cases of how internet mob mentality was manifested. With songs on high rotation on the radio, they became an easy target. It could have been any band, but it became a meme and with the acceleration in Facebook and other platforms… the feedback loop made it fashionable to pile on Nickelback. As younger people are the biggest consumers of music, it goes without saying, they are the most fickle with ensuring they are on the right side of a trend.

        The notion that Nickelback is particularly bad it unwarranted.

        It could happen to any band at any time. It’s a joke that went too far and has harmed the band irreparably. So the question is how does the music industry combat these tactics.

        John Narraway

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      • The biggest hate seems to come out of alternative, where it helps with your cred to hate the mainstream. Nickelback are the poster boys for mainstream. It’s no different than punk originally opposing 70s easy listening rock when it originally burst on the scene. Or any scene really that defines itself in opposition to what came before. We didn’t have social media back then to hype the headlines the way we do now to blow every little opinion way out of proportion.

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      • I happen to like Nickelback…their music is relatable

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    • I dont understand the hate for Nickleback either. I like their music, love that they are canadian and i think we should celebrate Canadian successes, not slam them. I see the same thing happening to Drake and other Canadian bands.

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    • I have been a fan of Nickelback since I first heard them back in the mid-late 90s. I am also a fan of guitar-centric rock, metal and blues. I can see why some legit musicians might roll their eyes at Nickelbacks music, similar to how I roll my eyes at my teenage daughter’s affinity for trashy Netflix series like Riverdale or Vampire Diaries–a lot of it seems like lazy writing and overproduction. Additionally, I think that a lot of lite-fans base their opinion only on the radio hits they have heard, which remind me of radio-Aerosmith: it’s sometimes hard to tell one song from another. However, I have seen Nickelback live a couple times and I have listened to all their records and I happen to think that they are pretty solid musicians–if it getss my head bangin, that’s sayin somethin…it’s meat and potatoes rock, and they know it and you certainly cant fault a business for selling a product that is in demand. I mean, AC/DC has sold a hundred jillion records on just three chords!
      If we exclude actual music critics who are in the business of actually critiquing, I think that the public backlash is more of a reflection of a social psychology, whereby it is easier to go along with the group rather than to have to defend a minority position. soomehow it became the norm to publicly express your dislike for Nickelback and standing up to a crowd of peers is practically unheard of these days.

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    • I personally believe corporate radio with its limited rotations of popular bands such a the highly popular Nickel Back are to blame. When you hear the same 20 songs in Constant rotation and a 4 of those 20 are Nickel Back it leads to heavy push back. Nickel Backs tried and true radio formula gets play and thus over played. I used to be a huge Pearl Jam fan but constant over play by stations owned by Corus Radio has left me without a single song by them in my personal play lists

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    • I have no idea why people don’t like Nickelback but as an older person I love their songs and Chad’s voice is so gravelly I think it is sexy. I don’t care what anyone says about them and I will continue to listen to their music.

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    • I’m a entrepreneur, inventor, writer. Im currently trying to get renewable energy into small towns in Arctic. On each of my solar presentations, (approved by Sahtu school board), i start each presentation with a song, ” what if everyone cared “…in all the schools…
      I wrote a book, science fiction, but based on Nickleback songs…and the time were living…
      The “children of the north” , would like to consult with Nickelback on this, we feel , through this, we can get them Back into a major role in world music…
      How do we send our manuscript to them?

      [email protected]

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    • There are a lot of good comments here. I think the “hate” is misplaced and, for me, it is more a sense of disappointment. They are an extraordinarily talented group. Very strong musicians and song writers capable of writing incredibly catchy songs. The problem is that too often it descends to too sophomoric a level. Hence the disappointment when you are certain they are capable of writing adult songs that can still rock out any stadium. It is as if they are living out Spinal Tap’s “Smell the Glove” but without the irony.

      Robin Somerville

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    • Personally i love Nickleback. Theyre one of my top 5 bands that i mainly listen to along with creed,linkin park,disturbed,and Hollywood undead. Most people that ive meet that doesn’t like Nickleback says its because all their songs sound the same (which is true to an extent) but music is music and coming form a black male that loves dubstep and rock over rap ill stand by that its better than todays “mumble rap”.

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  • I can only speak for me personally (I’m just a music fan, not a musician) and their music all sounds the same to me. I’ve given it a fair shake and just don’t understand why they can be so popular. Have to agree with Cale Tiffin’s analysis though re: over-produced and shoved down peoples’ throats. I have to laugh at the notion that they are radio friendly though – there’s so many songs where I think “How did they get away with putting those lyrics on radio?”, and then I realize nobody is actually listening to the lyrics.

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    • I say “radio friendly” in the sense that all their songs stay true to the formula of pleasing the ear. I.e. intro verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus outro. No odd instrument choices and no strange arrangements of style. As far as lyrics go, WAP (wet ass pussy) is currently a top selling song in the horrid side of the musical world. I think lyrical decency no longer controls a spot in the selection process of what people listen to.

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  • In my mind I think the hate they get started due to the fact that they were an OK rock band that were turned into a “product”. It’s like someone said, “Hey, these guys look kind of boy band-ish and they have catchy riffs, I can sell this!”. We ended up with music that was catchy(some of it), heavily produced, overly hyped, and over played. A lot like the pop music starting to come out of the late 90’s and early 2000’s. But now you’re trying to convince fans of rock music that these guys are a rock band. After coming out of the 90’s(in which there was an immense explosion of amazing new bands and music) and seeing the decline of new rock music/bands in the early 2000’s(but we were still craving what we got in the 90’s) we were then served Nickleback on a shiny platter. Cue the ire.

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    • As someone who bought the first Nickleback album I did like the style of music on that first album. I think there is a few reasons for the hate. One has to do with tge timing when they came out. For fans of the grunge era of music we were spoiled with a lot of great music in a short period of time. Kurt dies, Alice in chains weren’t recording sound garden broken up, smashing pumpkins no longer as relevant. Nickleback and the soft alternative rock was all that was left. Once they became the face of rock it was hard to jump on that wagon considering what we were used to owning the radio. Nickleback had complete control over all rock stations. I think they are as appealing as kid rock. Something a bit trashy and fake about it. Just doesn’t have the artistic feel of stp, muse, depeche mode or Tool.

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  • I was a Nickelback fan in 2000, and ‘Leader Of Men’ remains one of my favorite songs from that year. Then they absolutely exploded in popularity between 2001 and 2005 with singles ‘How You Remind Me’, ‘Too Bad’, ‘Never Again’, ‘Someday’, ‘Figured You Out’, ‘Photograph’ and ‘Animals’ to name the big ones. The sudden overexposure completely oversaturated me, and really drove home just how formulaic their sound became. They went from a fresh new sound in Canadian alt rock to what felt like a hit making algorithm. Honestly, I think they were a victim of their own meteoric success, especially in the US.

    We Canadians are funny. We wish for our bands to be successful which usually means widespread acceptance South of the border, but in truth when bands make it big down there we tend to turn our backs on them for selling out. In 2005 once it because cool to hate on Nickelback, the memes started and that was the beginning of the end. They leaned into what was working (which I don’t blame them for), but yeah, they were never a Leader of Men to me after 2000.

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    • I agree that they just exploded too fast.
      They were up and coming and released 3 amazing songs in a row with “Leader of Men”, “Old Enough”, and “Worthy to Say”.
      After that they released “How you Remind Me” and that was good for the first 1000 listens… then it was just too much.
      When you like a song first, then more and more people catch on to it, it loses its charm…
      You are a fan and actively want to hear the song, then others start requesting it…
      by the third wave of people who discover the song, you get tired of it.
      Then I think the same effect happens in reverse…
      There are the first wave of people who are sick of it… they voice their opinion and then it goes from there…
      That happened 2 singles in a row… then people get used to being sick of the bank as a whole and are not open to new music by them…

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      • First of all, good question, Alan, it’s there and widespread but very tricky to describe. Iagree with these two. Liked the first songs enough to buy the first album. Liked it enough to buy the second. Never considered the third. A few different things happened.

        The singles were similar sounding enough and everywhere so it bred feeling heard-one-heard-it-all. To that end, it felt like they found their comfort zone profit machine and were like “we’re good here, don’t try to experiment or grow or change anything.” It’s like finding the semi-cheat move in EA Sports NHL’94 and using it without hesitation or reservation – after a while, nobody will play with you because you’re not fun. You’re not technically cheating and the scoreboard says you’re doing as well as possible, but where’s the joy in that? Fans are fickle and demanding, wanting our favourite bands to grow and improve without losing what made us like them in the first place. It’s a a high wire act and most bands fail in some way. But imagine The Beatles if they just stuck to their 1963-1964 sound and kept pumping out those snappy little ear worms. We wouldn’t remember them the same way.

        It’s pretty rare to find an album I love that I love the first listen and love forever. People whose taste I respect often say things like “I need to give it a few listens before I know if I like it.” Nickelback doesn’t take a few listens, it’s clear what it is and there’s nothing new or interesting after the 2nd or 3rd – let alone the 15th or 20th – time you hear it. So then there are a lot of people who found Nickelback briefly exciting and then had had enough of it. But you could not get away from it, it was everywhere. Candy is instantly delicious and a nice treat. When you are force fed the candy for long enough, you will begin to revile it and may actively want to discourage others from volunteering for the all you can eat candy diet.

        Nickelback made some money and bless their hearts, decided to invest in Canadian music. With the Nickelback money and influence flowing, we got more music that sounded a lot like… Nickelback. Theory of a Deadman. Three Days Grace. Then I learned to check if these bands are proto-Nickels and tempered my enthusiasm. Now there’s Nickelback on the radio AND a bunch of songs that are like a Nickelback wearing different clothes. So that got tiring pretty fast. And it also was kind of an eclipse for (Canadian) music that would have otherwise been given radio play and might have been good and different. The opportunity cost of Nickelback. So now you feel like you have a car behind you at night that won’t turn off it’s high beams so your eyes hurt AND you can’t see anything. What a dick.

        Finally, Chad comes across as pretty insufferable, like a know it all who won’t shut up, or like the stereotype of the Ugly American Tourist. He has it all figured out and everyone wishes they were just like him, and in his grand benevolence he might just reach down and help a few of you poor little suckers. It also feels like aww man, finally (!!) there’s a Canadian band that makes it big, and it’s this guy? Other countries are going to think we are like this? How embarrassing.

        I found there to be a semi-redemption for Nickelback in the late 2000s. A couple of tracks would leak into the playlists of friends who were excellent curators. And a sentiment that we’re post-saturation and maybe we ought to check in again. That didn’t really grow into anything though.

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  • Is it because they are wildly successful and sing songs about BJs and black-out drinking?
    For the record, my musical tastes are very sophisticated and I love Nickelback. Chad is an
    extremely under–rated singer/songwriter who has 5 times the charisma that Axl Rose does.

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  • I think for, the perspective of the Canadian west coast, they were just overplayed on the radios during the early 00’s. I remember that I was fed up with every one of their single starting with “How you Remind Me” to “Someday”. At the time, there was no spotify, so unless I had a CD in the car, my rock options were limited. Plain and simple, at the time, they were just vastly overplayed on CFOX.

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  • At the point of “Photograph” the over playing on the radio killed them.

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  • Does the same apply for Limp Bizkit?…I like Limp Bizkit🤔

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    • They’re not the Worst Band in the World, but neither are they particularly great or ground-breaking. What they are, however, is one of the last rock bands to achieve global success before the rock genre “died*”.

      And I think rock fans at the time intuited this: both “why is this mediocre throwback buttrock group so popular instead of [lesser-known indie darling]” and “why is this genre that once shaped mass culture and terrified parents and preachers and politicians ending with a whimper instead of a bang?” I think it’s less about Nickelback specifically and more how they happen to represent the end of rock music as a whole.

      *The rock genre has not been a significant factor of global mass culture in a decade if not more. Rock songs almost never hit the top 40 and when they do, they’re heavily electronic or hip-hop influenced indie tracks. New rock songs aren’t used on film soundtracks

      Producer/YouTuber Rick Beato once asked if any of his viewers could name a rock band that’s come out in the last decade that could sell out an arena on every continent, and I don’t think there is one. Old-timers like U2 and Metallica and the Stones, sure, but anyone since the 00s? But several current pop and hip-hop artists definitely could.

      Sure, some rock artists still get respectable niche success, or major followings in certain regions like Europe or Latin America, but none become global sensations anymore. Nickelback was one of the very last. Much like jazz was the hottest music in the world in the 1940s and 50s but by the late 60s had become almost entirely a niche genre, so too for rock.

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  • I have to admit that I have no idea why / when they became hated. One minute they were loved by all. The next minute there was a hatred that seemed to come out of nowhere. I liken it to Green Day in some ways. I remember when Green Day first came out they were in the Punk and Alternative aisles in the music stores. After a while, when everyone started playing their songs I actually saw their CD’s in the Pop section of the store. People started calling them sellouts etc. I personally feel that Nickelback suffers from the same “herd mentality” in that they came out with their own brand of music; that brand of music became very successful, and now people are calling them sellouts for being “Pop Icons”. The only reason they became Pop (aka Popular) is because everyone like their sound and bought their music.

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    • I HAVE ALWAYS LIKED THEIR MUSIC AND THATS NEVER GONNA CHANGE AS LONG AS IM HERE AND IF THEY WRITE MUSIC IM GONNA LISTEN WHO CARE OF NO ELSE DOES IF THIS MUSIC HAS A POSITIVE IMPACT ON 1 PERSON IN THE WHO WIDE WORLD THEN THATS ALL THAT MATTERS. THERE IS A PLACE FOR ALL THAT HATE AND THATS IN HELL….THE WORLD NEEDS CHANGE AND ITS HAPPENING ITS BEEN WRITTEN IN THE BIBLE FOR CENTURIES …..THE LAST BOOK WILL TELL U WHATS GONNA HAPPEN NEXT …..THATS THE BOOK OF REVELATIONS!!!!!!!

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  • Hello Alan. Yes it’s hard to determine the exact reason for the hate-on but it led to a humorous put-down. I was at a high school ball tournament and two rival schools were there one known as Chatelach or otherwise ‘Chat’. Anyway, some kids from the host school had made the poster with “Chat ‘heart’ Nickleback”. How do you comeback from that?

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  • I think it was definitely a combination of things. None of them on their own are necessarily that bad, or even worthy of “hating” a band. But I think when put together, and the fact that each of them might affect a different cross section of rock/pop listeners, you wound up with a perfect storm
    1) They were one of the few popular “straight up rock” acts in the early 2000s. As grunge and post grunge faded out and pop, hip hop, nu-metal and pop-punk became popular, these guys and Creed (the other hated band) were the only ones left. This lead to the overplaying on rock-format radio. Too poppy for people who liked grunge, too boring for people who were into nu-metal or punk, too “omg, are there still people trying to sound like nirvana out there?” for people who had moved on from rock.
    2) Chad Kroeger. His hair was gross. Then it went all pretty-boy hair cut.
    3) The pop-rock formula (2 stanzas of nice vocals over a clean guitar, palm mute build into heavy guitar and loud vocals) x2, bridge, repeat chorus WAS very derivative. I once listened to someone overlay “how you remind me” with “Someday” (or whatever it was called), and it was pretty hilarious how perfectly they matched up. (I’m sure some tempo and key changing was involved, but the essence overlaid perfectly)
    4) Some of their songs definitely had a strong male chauvinistic tone to them. “I like your pants around your feet” comes to mind. That, coupled with the aforementioned hair and the marriage to the much younger Avril Lavigne definitely left a “this guy is pretty gross” feel. There was probably other stuff in there too that I can’t remember.
    5) I feel like they had a “we are rock stars” attitude, when that attitude was becoming less popular in rock and roll. e.g. The upcoming “indie rock” aesthetic was much more humble.
    6) Has anyone mentioned how overplayed they were?

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  • Cause Nickleback is blandness personified. They’re a band completely devoid of artistic expression and personality. That would be fine if they could back it up with good lyrics. But, no, they’re very rote lyrics delivered over and over again without a an ounce of subtlety. Thanks to corporate radio you got to hear that every day and every hour no matter where you happened to be. The 90s were a rich decade for alternative and Canadian rock, it just felt like the bar was already so much higher.

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  • The reason people hated Nickelback so much was because every radio station played them over and over. It’s one of those situations where you get exposed to something for so long that you start to hate it. Plus it didn’t help that all they’re songs had basically the same feel.

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  • This may sound overly simplified, but I think a lot of it has to do with their name. Couldn’t have chosen a worse name. It really gets under your skin. Ask yourself, would they still be hated if instead of Nickelback, their name was, I dunno, Pulse, Crimson Brigade, or Random Dawn?

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    • Nope all terrible. lol

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  • I don’t think the hate is so much for the band itself, but more so for what the band did. I feel that the hate stems from the band essentially creating the radio rock genre. Groups like Seether, theory of a deadman, three days grace all came along and flooded the radio with what I’m sure many saw as just generic cookie cutter rock songs. Not a nickelback fan, but I don’t hate them. Anytime someone says that they hate nickelback, I ask them why. I never seem to get any actual intelligent response.

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  • Saw a YouTube vid which played two Nickelback songs simultaneously and they were virtually identical save for the lyrics. Formulaic to the max. For the khaki, tucked in golf shirt white guys.

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  • I Love Nickelback and have from the first song (Leader of Men) I heard. They sound awesome in concert as well, don’t understand the hatred for them and never will.

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  • I think the biggest reason is the lyrics. Yeah, bands like Poison are similarly cringe-worthy but they seem to know it. Chad acts like he’s written some amazing poetry full of double entendres and rhymes worthy of Shakespeare. Uh, no.
    And then there’s the attitude. I remember he did an interview where he earnestly tried to explain the ending of his video for “photograph”. “Look at the footprints”, he said as if nobody else noticed it. I laughed for hours that day.
    And finally, the jerry curl. Oh man. Cmon. Do I have to explain that?

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  • Here’s my take:

    I was introduced to Nickelback in 2000 when I heard their song “Old Enough”. It was a catchy post-grunge song and I liked it. In 2001, when they released their mega hit “How You Remind Me”, I liked that song too, and still do today. What happened after is where my problem started with Nickelback. In 2003, they released the song “Someday”. It was catchy, and I thought it was alright, but then, like many others did, I discovered that the structure of the song was almost exactly the same as “How You Remind Me”. When I discovered this, I was turned off, as I’m someone who appreciates originality and creativity, especially from rock bands. I was turned off more by the terrible music video for that song (go watch it and you’ll understand why). Then it got worse. Their next single was the song “Figured You Out”, which while catchy, is also lyrically one of the worst songs ever written. I still cringe whenever I hear that song. And what made it worse was that because Nickelback was so popular and were Canadian, Canadian radio and video stations played these bad songs all day, everyday. Chad Kroeger’s singing voice is tolerable on occasion, but after listening to it all day everyday for months/years, you really start to hate it. At that point, I changed from thinking of Nickelback as a decent band to thinking of them as a garbage band. With their next album, and every album after, they stuck with that exact same formula: A few unoriginal, cliche-ridden phony love songs (Far Away, Gotta Be Somebody, I’d Come For You, Never Gonna Be Alone, etc.) and some lyrically horrible, vulgar hard rock songs (Animals, Something in Your Mouth, Burn It To the Ground, etc.) When Nickelback became one of the biggest bands in the world in 2005/06, my hate for them grew. I probably wouldn’t have hated them so much if they weren’t so popular. Their fans really angered me when they talked about how “real” their love songs were. They were/are such fools. Maybe I felt the way Sloan did, “It’s not the band I hate, it’s their fans”.

    I really hated Nickelback in my high school years, but since then I’ve grown up and stopped hating them. I still think a lot of their songs suck, but I’ve realized that music shouldn’t be taken so seriously and if their songs makes people happy, let them be happy. Also, as a Limp Bizkit fan, I shouldn’t be criticizing other bands for bad lyrics and lack of originality.

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  • The common thread I see in the posts above is that their songs sound the same, generic production, etc and I couldn’t agree more. They also sound like a myriad of other bands in the same vein. Volbeat, Theory, etc etc. No different than the 80’s hair metal though when everyone sounded like Crue. When they hit the scene, I enjoyed a couple of the radio hits but they fell off my radar after a pretty quickly but never got on the hate bandwagon too much. A couple points I could add to this;

    It’s a bit of a culture war thing to. As much as I love Radiohead there are just as many Radiohead haters out there as there are Nickelback and I think it depends on which side of the scene you are on, (or bubble you are in?). Our local “classic rock” station plays 90’s grunge now but stays away and has openly mocked Radiohead. Remember when Fox decided they hated Radiohead?
    https://www.theguardian.com/media/shortcuts/2017/oct/31/knives-out-why-fox-news-declared-war-on-radiohead

    I would also like to point out their lyrics leave a little to be desired. For every How You Remind Me and Photograph there’s

    “Figured You Out

    I like your pants around your feet
    And I like the dirt that’s on your knees
    And I like the way you say please
    While you’re looking up at me
    You’re like my favorite damn disease”

    Enough said on that.

    Now bearing all that in mind, I often tell people this reminds me of Led Zeppelin back in the 70’s. Biggest band in the world, album sales in the millions at the time, sold out concerts where ever they went, and their legacy continues to live on. However absolutely zero critical respect at the time. Rolling Stone made hating them into an art form.
    https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/led-zeppelin-mendelsohn-album-reviews-cameron-crowe-747183/

    Sound like anyone we know? Be careful as Karma is a bitch. We might have Nickelback in the Rock ‘n’ Roll hall of fame some day.

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  • I ABSOLUTELY LOVE NICKELBACK…I have saw them in concert 5 times!!!!!

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  • Here’s why: (Some is fair; some not)

    – They’re just another quality rock band yet they get put on a pedestal by the music industry, media, (and seemingly just a small number of fans).
    – Chad Kroeger comes across as very arrogant (that’s never going to help); he dyes his brown hair blond (so did Kurt so hmm…), he’s had “frosted tips” in the past, he’s great looking, & I’ve never seen or heard of him doing anything humble or helpful (Im sure he does in reality).
    – Their music is often super weak, shlocky, commercial, radio-friendly, & worst-of-all poser-heavy. I loved Fly from way back in the 90s.
    – They’re rich, famous, popular, so much worse musically than 100s of Better rock bands, and it’s hard not to resent that for big music fans.
    – I heard stories of Chad being pulled over drunk in his Lamborghini (from the news), & stealing beers from a home (from a youth-friend in the 90s).

    They totally rocked when I saw them at the 2011 Grey Cup in Vancouver. I dislike them quite a bit – musically & personally – from what I know/my perception.

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  • Here’s why: (Some is fair; some not)

    – They’re just another quality rock band yet they get put on a pedestal by the music industry, media, (and seemingly just a small number of fans).
    – Chad Kroeger comes across as very arrogant (that’s never going to help); he dyes his brown hair blond (so did Kurt so hmm…), he’s had “frosted tips” in the past, he’s great looking, & I’ve never seen or heard of him doing anything humble or helpful (Im sure he does in reality).
    – Their music is often super weak, shlocky, commercial, radio-friendly, & worst-of-all poser-heavy. I loved Fly from way back in the 90s.
    – They’re rich, famous, popular, so much worse musically than 100s of Better rock bands, and it’s hard not to resent that for big music fans.
    – I heard stories of Chad being pulled over drunk in his Lamborghini (from the news), & stealing beers from a home (from a youth-friend in the 90s).

    They totally rocked when I saw them live at the 2011 Vancouver Grey Cup. I dislike them quite a bit, musically & personally – from what I know/my perfection.

    Reply
  • I’m not a hater, so I don’t have personal insights into this mass hatred of the band. I do ask some haters why they hate and they always give a benign answer. Something about simplistic music or lyrics. Maybe something about lack of integrity and chasing the dollar. To me, it sounds like they hate the band because they are supposed to hate the band. If so any people hate them then I should hate them too. I don’t know how this group think began but I feel it is unwarranted and Nickelback is likely many people’s secret guilty pleasure. No they are not the Dostoevsky of rock but sometimes it’s fun to read Evanovich instead.

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  • For me it seems as if they were chosen to pick up where Nirvana left off. As if they were the rightful heirs to grunge.

    It felt as if they were chosen not by music fans, but by radio programmers.

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  • “Look at this photograph, every time I do it makes me laugh. How did our eyes get so red, and what the hell is on Joey’s head?”
    The hate is definitely disproportionate, but these lyrics are garbage.

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  • Nickelback, whether it’s fair or not, tends to fall in with bands like Staind or Creed that are seen as pretty indistinguishable in their generic and humourless qualities (and one shared, irritating voice that attempts to be but does not succeed in being Eddie Vedder). There are people listing different singles by Nickelback here and I genuinely think someone could do a megamix of those singles with Creed and Staind’s singles and no one would notice that it wasn’t one song.

    I also think that Canadians tend to resent that Chad Kroeger, with his fake hair and arrogant non-personality, is looked to as a representative of Canada and its music scene (it doesn’t help that Justin Bieber and Avril Lavigne stand next to him). There’s also the geographical factor on the Canada front, right? Canadians increasingly see the Prairies as our equivalent of the American South, and, for a lot of people who liked the music that Nickelback originally emerged from, that’s not a great thing.

    For comparison, Foo Fighters are increasingly looked to as Nickelback’s American corporate alt-turned-generic-rock equivalent (as the amount of mainstream rock bands falls off). But beyond the cred factor that Dave Grohl has from Nirvana and Kroeger could never dream of, I think they get more respect because a) there’s more variety and, frankly, a higher level to their music and lyrics (their singles just do not run together the way Nickelback ones do), b) Grohl’s voice is far less annoying, and c) they just seem like across-the-board better guys. Compare “Figured You Out” (where Nickelback lost A LOT of people) to “All My Life” (where Foo Fighters experienced a major renaissance) – both released the same year, both have pretty much the same video, both post-grunge, both pretty aggressively sexual. But Kroeger “likes your pants around your feet, the dirt that’s on your knees, and the white stains on your dress” and “loves his hands around your neck,” while Grohl “loves it but he hates the taste.” It’s not rocket science.

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  • I think the music is boring, the lyrics uninspired and the misogynistic image to be off putting. There are so many great talented band and artists that will never reach their level of popularity and I find that disappointing.

    Reply
  • One theory about Nickelback is that they may be a “Poor Man’s Nirvana”. While Nickelback was successful in the 2000’s I don’t think they ever had the awe and respect that Nirvana had after “Smells like Teen Spirit” hit the MTV airwaves in 1991/1992.

    I think Nickelback is often unconsciously compared to Nirvana which was much darker and more creative than the commercially successful, but more light-hearted Nickelback band.

    However, my opinions can be disputed. Let me know what you think.

    Reply
  • There are likely a diversity of reasons that people love to hate Nickleback. For myself as a similar aged female to the band members I find everything about their music and style contrived. “Deliberately created” “Non spontaneous” ” Not arrived at Naturally” in essence their presence in the music scene is not authentic. What does feel authentic is Chad Krueger’s boys boy or potentially mans man mentality. This culture seems to resonate through their music, hurting your ears, visual senses and equality. Just one person’s perspective on why everytime Nickleback gets radio airtime… I turn the radio off

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