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Why does everyone hate Nickelback so much?

 

By LUCY GRANSBURY

I often have to consult the cool kids.

‘Hey popular people, which milk is in fashion for my latte these days? Almond? Coconut? Breast?’

‘Which jeans am I supposed to be wearing again? Ripped? Skinny? Boyfriend? Skinny-with-slight-beer-gut boyfriend?’

But there is one commandment that I continue to come across from ‘Those Kids Cooler Than Me’ (i.e. Everyone) that I’m just not sure about.

Thou Shalt Despise Nickelback.

 

WANKERS! Ok, am I cool yet?

Some dude in London has started a kick-starter campaign asking people to donate to the cause: NEVER LETTING NICKELBACK PERFORM IN LONDON AGAIN.

Depending on the donation, he will do anything from send an email in the donator’s name with a kind request to the band to stay away, to sending Nickelback’s music back to Nickelback.

 

I want to say to this young whippersnapper:

a) calm down and

b) get a life.

They are just a band. Surely, the much less strenuous solution is this: If you don’t like them… Don’t listen to them. I don’t really like listening to the bagpipes, so I don’t buy Greatest Bagpipin’ Hits. I don’t particularly like Avicii, so I don’t buy his albums*.

I did some research (it’s rare, I had to lie down afterwards) and came across some reasons why more people hate Nickelback than drinking orange juice after brushing their teeth.

1. WE HATE NICKELBACK BECAUSE…. Their songs are kind of offensive.

But… so is Eddie McGuire. Okay, that Nickelback song that starts with “I like your pants around your feet”  has some pretty naughty connotations. But so does “The Thong Song”. And Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”. And Spice Girls “2 Become 1”.

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Still, they’re catchy.

2. WE HATE NICKELBACK BECAUSE…. Their lyrics are lame.

But in Katy Perry’s new song, she sings “this is how we do” 29 times. I counted. And she’s one of the biggest selling artists of all time. “My hump, my hump, my hump (ha), my lovely lady lumps (Check it out)” doesn’t stop The Black Eyed Peas from being a-grade dance floor material.  “And I don’t, and I don’t, and I don’t, and I don’t/No I don’t, it’s true/I don’t, no, I don’t, no, I don’t, no, I don’t/Want anybody else but you” doesn’t stop me loving that Coldplay ‘Magic’ song.

3. WE HATE NICKELBACK BECAUSE…. Chad Kroeger’s growly, whiny voice is really annoying.

But so is Macy Gray’s. And Cindi Lauper’s. And Avril Lavigne’s**. And the Schni Schna Schnappi kid. And Frank Walker from National Tiles.

Just change the station, no?

4. WE HATE NICKELBACK BECAUSE…. Really analytical reasons to do with rock and changing music tastes. 

So in some of my research (again, by ‘research’ I mean ‘skim-reading while watching re-runs of Friends’) , I came across lengthy discussions comparing the glory days of Nickelback (circa 2005-2008) to their lame-ass current status, and how they just didn’t adapt to the changing times of rock or grunge rock or pet rock or whatever. Fair enough. And at least those lengthy discussions were more in-depth than “I hate Nickelback cos they, like, SUCK”.

But if they didn’t adapt, leave them be. Let them grow old and irrelevant in a little retirement village of sad, expired musos and their unfashionable old guitars, those who used to be cool and now have everyone hate them. They’ll probably see Bono there.

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5. WE HATE NICKELBACK BECAUSE…. Everyone else does.

I reckon that 90% of the Nickelback-haters just stumbled across a bandwagon. There was one dude (probably with a goatee beard or whatever hipster facial hair was in fashion) standing on the bandwagon, blocking his ears and ripping up a Nickelback poster. So all the hipsters jumped on, starting up forums and chat rooms and petitions and grumpy-teenage-sulk-and-whinge-sessions so that everyone had a place to bitch about the Nick.

But there’s one thing you might not know about Nickleback haters.

They get home to their hipster houses each night, hide in their trendy minimalist burrows, plug in their headphones and crank up Chad Kroeger, secretly rocking out and growling:

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?

Because really, when it comes down to it, what is so bad about Nickelback?

 

*I actually thought Avicii was an Italian restaurant for an embarrassingly long time. And then he had a concert here, and everyone kept telling me they were going to Avicii on the weekend and I thought ‘Gee, those pasta chefs are going to be busy’. I asked someone if they’d made a table reservation, and the truth was revealed.

**Incidentally, equally-as-annoying-voiced Avril Lavigne is married to Nickelback’s lead singer Chad Kroeger, but rumour has it they are getting divorced. Anyone who is president of an “I hate Nickelback” club… you may expect a member request from Avril any day now.

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