The Case For Nickelback
Oh boy, here we go. Possibly the most reviled band in the world, at least until Imagine Dragons came into their own, they are typically disregarded and hated by the masses, even by those who have not spent very much time listening to them. It seems like the cool thing to hate on Nickelback; they are peak butt rock, being incredibly overblown, underwritten, overproduced and obnoxiously annoying. They are most certainly the worst band of the 2000s. Or… are they? I decided to sit down through their most popular album, 2005’s All the Right Reasons, and see if all of the hate truly holds up. I’ll be writing these notes as I listen in real time, track by track to break down if the popular opinions stands in my eyes. I would like to preface with two things, firstly: none of the lyrics are worth paying attention to. They are vapid, misogynistic and sometimes completely objectionable, and they barely deserve to be discussed and will not be mentioned much if at all, outside of some of the more interesting or funny or truly terrible cases. And second: I grew up with this album (tragic, I know) so there will most likely be some level of bias that carries me through this. But without further ado, it’s time for Nickelback.
“Follow You Home” - The album’s opener, “Follow You Home” has a cheesy ass guitar solo, and a really weird deep voice bridge at the end. However, the chorus isn’t terrible and is kinda catchy before the deep voice thing returns for the final chorus. Not a very good start to the album by any means, and hopefully there is improvement in the future.
“Fight for All the Wrong Reasons” - The start of “Fight for All the Wrong Reasons” sounds almost the same as "Follow You Home.” The usage of these weird, whispery backing vocals make me feel uneasy in an unenjoyable way, not quite nails on chalkboard but like a fork scraping along a plate. The chorus for this track feels like them taking a swing at nu-metal and it is not working, somehow feeling like an even worse version of Disturbed. The ending sounds terrible with the back and forth vocals and the semi-tremolo guitars not working for me at all, with this sound being repeated throughout the entire track and growing incredibly grating by the finale.
“Photograph” - Oh yeah baby, “Photograph” time. One of the all-time cheesiest songs I've ever heard, but the nostalgia definitely carries for me at the same time. Incredibly generic and bland but still a kinda fun song with a very catchy chorus that I will sing along to anytime I hear it. I know that I said I would not talk about the lyrics, but they verge on “so bad it's good” territory here, trying to paint some picture of his youth that makes him seem like a douche, which I am not even really convinced that he lived at all. There’s no way that there’s this much stuff to do in Alberta. The bridge at the end is the peak of the cheese with the backing vocals but I just can’t hate this song.
“Animals” - Oh god. This is the other side of cheese, trying to seem like the coolest guy possible with another story that most definitely did not happen, some sick fantasy that plays in Chad Kroeger’s head when he goes to bed at night. Sadly, it kinda fucking rips at the same time, with a solid guitar line and a very energetic performance from Chad despite the incredibly terrible lyrics in the second verse, and the regular terrible lyrics in the rest. This song felt like the least of a drag so far, despite the incredibly problematic contents of the track itself, and breezed by quite quickly. Four tracks in and I don’t want to pass away at least, so this listen is going much better than I could have expected.
“Savin’ Me” - “Savin’ Me” is another song I remember vividly from my childhood, and the second half of the chorus is the best kind of Nickelback in my mind and I cannot explain why. That drunk singalong shit just hits for me, and I feel like it would go crazy at a frat house in 2010. This is, however, another song trying to be deep and sad but the tone just does not hit the right way, and the empty moments before the acoustic part of the chorus is annoying and cheesy (how many times am I gonna say cheesy during this?). The guitar solo is fine, nothing exciting but does not bother me at all either. There are definitely worse guitar solos across this project. This is a bit of a nothing song overall, but the fun chorus props it up a little bit for me.
“Far Away” - “Far Away” is just “Photograph” but worse in almost every way. You could almost convince me this is a Creed song. I will say though, Chad’s singing on the chorus is probably his best on the whole album so far, with some actually enjoyable parts that convince me he possesses much more talent than he lets on through most of the band’s songs. This song is dragging on way too fucking long though, I feel like it could have been a minute and a half long total and had almost the same impact. The chorus near the end with the higher register is a nice moment though, and I think it's as pretty as Nickelback can get as a band, which is still a solid few steps down from a lot of other bands.
“Next Contestant” - “Next Contestant” is, somehow, the most lyrically terrible song of the album, even with “Animals” competing for the title. The chorus is quite heavy and a little silly though, if you manage to take this song as a joke then it's kinda fun hearing him try to be all macho and aggressive. If I imagine this to be a parody band of post-grunge then this song works a lot better than it does. Surely, it is ruining the streak of fine tracks that this album has been on since “Photograph” though. The guitars are getting annoying now halfway through the song, can’t they switch it up a little? I need a break. I find myself nodding along to the melody of the chorus though, despite the aggravating deep-voice distorted backing vocals, but the verses are incredibly forgettable.
“Side of a Bullet” - This song is fucking terrible, truly deserving of all the slander this band gets. There is nothing enjoyable about this, the shredding guitar sounds are incredibly grating during the verses, the chorus is not catchy in the slightest, and the lyrics aren’t even funny in how bad they are, it just makes me shake my head. Chad’s worst performance of the album by far as well, with a generic guitar solo to boot. I have nothing else to say.
“If Everyone Cared” - Thankfully, we are back to the best side of Nickelback, trying to be wistful and insightful but falling on their face in almost comedic fashion. This song features some solid singing (compared to the rest of the album, at least) and a very fun chorus to sing along to as well with a big cheesy smile on your face, and an absurdly surface-level message along with it. This is truly i’m-14-and-this-is-deep material on this song, but it is not hurting my ears and can almost be confused for a good track compared to a few of the previous songs on this album. Almost. Still, definitely passable and inoffensive, and went by without a hitch.
“Someone That You’re With” - This song sounds like a less-heavy “Animals” from the start. The guitars in this sound silly in a bad way, giving almost “Cotton Eye Joe” vibes. This is also one of the few songs I do not recognize at all from my childhood, and the chorus sounds like one of the worst possible Foo Fighters outtakes. Is this Chad’s attempt at a love song of some sort? If someone wrote this for me I might look to get a restraining order. Also, the chorus sounds like it is in a completely different song from the verses, I think they just took two workshopped tracks and mashed them together so they could finish it without doing any extra work. The drums and bass on this album so far have left absolutely zero impression on me, which could either be good that they are not horrific so far, or bad that they are not doing anything to redeem the worst moments on this record. The brief acoustic section at the end of this song was not needed at all, and definitely detracted from the track. This is peak Nickelback, in that I will forget everything about it the second it is finished, completely bland and boring.
“Rockstar” - Fuck yeah, “Rockstar” time. This is pretty much a country rock song with the twang in his voice and the guitar line during the voices (they’re Albertan so it checks out). This might be one of the best terrible karaoke songs in existence, it’s super fun to sing but probably horrible to hear someone else do. I personally think that it's objectionable but funny, as with some other songs on this album, and is pretty much just the hard rock version of “Beverly Hills” by Weezer. The lines spoken in the background are sometimes boring, sometimes horrible, and occasionally hilarious (“I’ll have the quesadilla” is poetry to my ears). This song is in incredibly poor taste as many songs are, and yet has an undeniably catchy chorus. While not their number one most popular track, this is the defining Nickelback song in my eyes, and I will enjoy it guiltily every time it comes on.
Well, this was definitely an experience. I do not know what I expected going into this. I did not expect it to turn out as bad as everyone said it would, but I also did not think there would be as many songs that I enjoyed as there were. It’s hard for me to say that any of the songs on here were actually any good, or if my ears are just clouded by hopeful optimism and nostalgia from my younger years. Don’t get me wrong, this is not an album that I am going to be listening to very often, if at all. I will not be going out of my way to listen to any other Nickelback, either. But for what this album is, it definitely draws much more hate than it actually deserves due to the reputation that Nickelback have built for themselves. From front to back, this is probably one of the most average albums I have ever heard, a flat 5 in every way.