Nickelback: The Hate of Comedic Proportions

As you all know, I'm a huge fan of Rock and Metal Music. In fact, I enjoy everything that involves heavy riffs and big drum bangs. But beyond all those noise, there is this one Canadian band that everyone, every fan of every single musical genre seems love to hate. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, probably one of the most hated musical acts, Nickelback.

Formed in Hanna, Alberta, Canada in 1995, brothers Chad and Mike Kroeger along with their cousin Brandon and Ryan Peeke first christened the band as "Village Idiot", later rename it "Nickelback" originally because of Mike Kroeger's job at that time as an employee at Starbucks who frequently said "here's your nickel back". They performed covers of Led Zeppelin and Metallica back then, and released their first full-length album titled Curb. Since then, there were some lineup changes, particularly drummers, but as of today, the lineup consist of brothers Chad as vocalist/guitarist and Mike Kroeger as bassist, Guitarist Ryan Peeke and drummer Daniel Adair. They achieved their first commercial success with their 2001 album Silver Side Up that contained their hit single How You Remind Me. The single itself topped the Mainstream and Modern Rock, as well as Pop charts. But when they released All The Right Reasons in 2005, the tide turned on them. The album was criticized for having "the worst rock lyrics ever recorded". It also only received 41 rating out of possible 100 by Metacritic. One of the singles of the album, Rockstar also became a target of mockery by BuzzFeed while ranking the song at number 2 in the list of 30 worst songs by stating that "If aliens came to Earth and asked why everybody hates Nickelback so much, this song would be a perfect explanation". It looked like the release of the album had their popularity raised for all the wrong reasons.

Despite Nickelback's overwhelming success not just in Canada, but also all the way to the United States, their music generates both praise and critics alike. They were criticized based on three things. First, they always use the same formula on their song structure. When you compare How You Remind Me and the infamous Rockstar from the afromentioned album, you will notice that the scales and the very structure of the song are strangely similar. Most fans will say, 'every band has to evolve', and for good reason. Many bands changed their formula to keep themselves relevant. Metallica did this when they released their self-titled album dubbed The Black Album in 1991. This move genereated a lot of buzz and backlash alike. Slipknot is another band that changed their style to keep up with the masses while still retain their hardness and agression when they put together Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses. The most notable change of the album is vocalist Corey Taylor's more melodic approach in vocal delivery, while their overall sound didn't change by much. Nickelback however, felt really comfortable with their song formula. It's like they constantly recycle their songs based on How You Remind Me in its entirety. The second reason why Nickelback was critisized is the fact that in their entire catalogue, they always write songs that revolve around sex, drugs, alcohol and prostitutes. Of course many metal bands also deal with these subjects, but some songs aren't always about it. While Master of Puppets was indeed about drug addiction, Metallica turned the tide around when they released their single One off their follow up album And Justice For All. With the song One, they described in detail about a man that lost all his limbs, senses, and his ability to survive and pain tolerance as a result of war. There are many metal acts that exclude those topics altogether, instead putting together albums that would actually tell a specific story. King Diamond is a primary example of this case, as their records are about telling (mostly) horror stories. And the third reason is everyone seems to channel the hate towards the frontman Chad Kroeger. As we all know, Kroeger is known as Avril Lavigne's ex-husband, being married in 2013 until their separation in 2015. During that time, this husband-wife team collaborated on several occasions, the latest one being the release of Lavigne's most infamous single Hello Kitty, which was easily labeled as the worst song ever. The music video of the song even got pulled from YouTube because of the negative backlash. He is also known, infamously, to be able to actually performed oral sex on himself when he was 14 years old. But some fans know Kroeger as a childish frat boy who only loves to complain and throwing shades, as he did with Slipknot and Stone Sour frontman Corey Taylor.

From those criticisms, spawn hate. But apparently, the hate for this Canadian band has taken the comedic route for many years. One of the famous examples is the "Photograph" meme, which based on the music video of the namesake song. The meme consist of Kroeger holding up a frame, that every single netizen can insert a picture for comedic intentions. The band name also became a target of constant intentional mispellings, from "Nickelsuck" to "Nipplesack", among many others. Every single member of the society loves to pick fun of this band, even the Canadian Police Force. A Metalsucks Article posted on November 29, 2016 (https://www.metalsucks.net/2016/11/29/canadian-police-department-institutes-new-punishment-for-drunk-drivers-having-to-listen-to-nickelback/) actually reports that Kensington PD in Kensington, Prince Edward Island, Canada once posted a Facebook status which stated that they will deal the drunk driving case with criminal charges, hefty fines, suspension of driving licence, and "playing the office's copy of Nickelback in the cruiser on the way to jail". The post even hilariously continued "Now, now, no need to thank us, we figure if you are foolish enough to go behind the wheel after drinking then a little Chad Kroeger and the boys is the perfect gift for you". They are called many things, from 'abomination', to 'talentless'. Even the common music enthusiast disliked them. Hell, even Hollywood once jumped on the bandwagon with the release of a teaser trailer from 'Once Upon A Deadpool', a PG-13 version of the superhero movie Deadpool starring Ryan Reynolds, a Canadian.

As of today, Nickelback is still working on the followup to their 2018 release Feed The Machine which only recorded 47.000 units sold on its first week of release, their lowest so far. Kroeger also collaborate with musician Devin Townsend on Townsend's own release titled Empath, and both of them are enjoying this collaboration work. Despite the hate and the mockeries they received, Nickelback has amassed many accolades, including 2 American Music Awards, 6 Billboard Music Awards, a staggering 12 Juno Awards and 6 Grammy Nominations, among others. Will the hate on Nickelback subsidize? We will never know. All I know is they are a successful Canadian band that unfortunately picked up more hate than any other band. And I thought that Justin Bieber is already hated enough.