r/Music S9dallasoz, dallassf 11d ago

Chad Kroeger on all those Nickelback jokes: 'I'm not gonna apologize for my success' article

https://www.audacy.com/national/music/chad-kroeger-not-gonna-apologize-for-nickelback-success
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u/Youngandidiotic radio reddit 11d ago 1UP

And then like 10 years later imagine dragons took their place lol

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u/zold5 11d ago

Nickelback has gotten waaaaaaaayyyy more hate than imagine dragons ever did.

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u/misterpickles69 11d ago

The Chainsmokers make Imagine Dragons look like Nickelback.

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u/Luke_Cold_Lyle 11d ago hehehehe

Backdoor Sluts 9 makes Crotch Capers 3 look like Naughty Nurses 2

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u/knotshure 11d ago

Gerald, how the heck do you know that???

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u/ilovehamburgers 11d ago

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u/Dive30 11d ago

Sometimes when a mommy and daddy love each other very much . . .

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u/Upper-Oil-153 10d ago

Butters post BS9 is the Gollum game we should have got

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u/_toodamnparanoid_ 11d ago

He read about it. In People.

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u/yesiamveryhigh 11d ago

Do I need to see Backdoor Sluts 1-8 first to understand 9?
Crotch Capers 1-2 where ehh, so I’ll pass on 3 but I can’t wait for Naughty Nurses 3!

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u/Adultghosttours 11d ago

Backdoor Sluts 8 really pushes deep into the lore and busts the series wide open with an explosive finish.

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u/mahkimahk 11d ago

I am very unclear on what this means

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u/DuckOnQuak 11d ago

It literally makes no sense lol if being nickelback is a bad thing, then doesnt that mean they’re saying the chainsmokers are good?

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u/WhisperScream92 11d ago

I didn't know they were disliked until this very post lol

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u/[deleted] 11d ago edited 11d ago

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u/jaykoblanco 11d ago

I was a kid then and swear one day people were jamming to Photograph, and then next everyone hated them. Same thing with Green Day to a certain extent

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u/ListenToBusiness 11d ago edited 11d ago

I forgot all about the Green Day hate. American Idiot dropped and the entire fan base seemed to shift. They got so much shit for that and the accompanying musical. Then, a few years later, it seemed like the former fan base was like "you know what, this album is great and so is Green Day." The balance was restored.

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u/Dawanna 11d ago edited 11d ago

American idiots hate mad me realized that people don't care about the music as much as they care about how they look listening to the music. All my emo/punk friends dropped Green Day immediately because it wasn't cool anymore. And I was sitting there thinking. This is good music. This is a good album. I still rocked Green Day.

Same thing with Metallica "selling out" around that time. Yea Hatfield is a huge tool but that doesn't mean all their previous music was shit all of the sudden. And then Death magnetic dropped and they all acted like listening to that album would give you AIDS. I didn't like it but not because it was from a sellout band.

Some people just take music to personally and don't know that musicians can do whatever they want. Like imagine if every Beatles album was the same as their first one.

People shouldn't make music their whole personality.

Edit: I may have gotten hatfield confused with Lars.

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u/beefknuckle 11d ago

Death magnetic

you must have missed the St Anger hate. that was something else.

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u/Chief_Givesnofucks 11d ago

You don’t like Rickety Cricket on drums?!

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u/JimMcSwiggins 11d ago

Hips and Nips! You gotta make it sexy! Otherwise you don't eat

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u/Pollomonteros 11d ago

But isn't St. Anger a legitimately bad album ?

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u/thejollybanker 11d ago

Amazing that they released an album with that snare sound and everyone was like “yeah, this is a good idea, way to go Bob rock!”

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u/dreibel 11d ago

St. Anger is the worst album Metallica ever made!

LuLu: “Hold my beer.”

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u/metatron5369 11d ago

The problem with being a fan is that a lot of people form an emotional attachment to the thing they're a fan of. They absorb it into their identity. When that thing changes and they feel like it no longer represents them, some people snap.

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u/SodlidDesu 11d ago

The Green Day hate really coincided with Nimrod and "Time of your life" because it was stupid overplayed and nothing like Dookie.

And then coasted with Warning and turned off most of their Dookie fans. The timing of American Idiot and the rather (in my opinion) tame political punk shift (Compared to NOFX's War on Errorism or a lot of their contemporaries) certainly hurt their cred but their mainstream exposure hit them with more hate from the political right as well.

That said, I remember Nickelback hate from their first album but I had a girlfriend at the time who liked them so I do enjoy a few of their songs.

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u/Harry_Saturn 11d ago Gold

We weren’t coached to hate them, they were just on non stop on the radio and every shop. Like every 3 songs was nickleback, and if you didn’t hate them, hearing it non stop made a lot of people hate them. They’re super mediocre but I think they’re hate because it was just on non stop for almost a decade and if you worked in retail or food an beverage you couldn’t escape them. After a while, it went from being annoying to hatred. At least that’s why I hate them.

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u/DrRocknRolla Spotify 11d ago

Which is wild, because growing up outside north America/Europe, Nickelback got moderate amounts of playtime and me and my friends all liked them. It wasn't uncommon at all. Kinda the same deal with Creed.

Ninja edit: we never thought "oh this is the best band ever" but it definitely didn't get as much hate as I see online.

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u/flaneur_et_branleur 11d ago

Couldn't avoid them on a night out either if you enjoyed rock or metal nights as some arse of a DJ would put them on as a joke every damn time. Super, super mediocre band.

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u/BlinkReanimated 11d ago

This, it's even worse in Canada (in case you aren't) where there are radio regulations that require 1/3 songs per hour to be Canadian. There are plenty of Canadian bands with a ton of diversity, but... they weren't as popular as Nickelback.. Hearing non-stop Nickelback on any station that is even remotely rock or country formatted was absolutely maddening.

There was also Theory of a Deadman which is essentially a (somehow worse) clone of Nickelback.

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u/MikhailBakugan 11d ago

Thaaaaaats why I hate them. I couldn’t figure out why the radio saturation of “How you remind me” specifically was so high, now it makes sense.

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u/RunningSouthOnLSD 11d ago

NEVER MADE IT AS A WISE MAN

changes station

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u/randy241 11d ago

Do you remember that joke? "What band is this?" "It's theory of a nickel creed"

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u/drop_thesoap 11d ago

Good times. We swapped creed for default and they were "theory of a nicklefault "

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u/TraNSlays 11d ago

I could care less about Nickelback but I will admit they have some hits.

The weird part are the people who go out of their way who have to let others know they hate Nickelback, like okay bro

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u/theperfectslurpee 11d ago

I was never a fan, maybe even a hater, but my kids love Imagine Dragons so I took them to a festival they headlined and fuck me, they were great

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u/Rocjames77 11d ago

Omg I got dragged to an imagine dragons concert by an ex girlfriend 5 years ago and my friends still make fun of me

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u/Environmental-Art792 11d ago Silver

Imagine dragon someone to an imagine dragons concert

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u/OhShitItsSeth 11d ago

Imagine dragon these nuts across your face lmao gottem

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u/SheepherderNo2440 11d ago

Only thing I can think of when I hear imagine dragons

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u/Rocjames77 11d ago

After I typed it I thought the same thing and was hoping someone as corny as myself would write this. You made my day

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u/Youngandidiotic radio reddit 11d ago

Fuck them live music is awesome

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u/NeedleworkerHairy607 11d ago

Yeah I've seen a few bands live at festivals that I never cared for to begin with, but thought they were a lot better after seeing them. Billy Talent was one. Some things get lost in sanitized studio recordings, but get put on display when you play it like you mean it.

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u/HerculesVoid 11d ago

Exactly this. I can bet over half of the artists you like, I can look them up online and think they're meh or not to my taste. But you'd argue they're amazing live. It's exactly the same for imagine dragons. Too pop for rockers, too rock for edm pop enjoyers.

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u/jbazildo 11d ago
  1. Couldn't stand those guys. Saw them live. Totally flipped. They both charmed and rocked me and I was surprised by both.

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u/psycharious 11d ago

A lot of pop rock bands will play up the "rock" aspect of their music live. When I heard Shinedown and Muse at Aftershock, it was obvious that they were playing "harder".

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u/Rocjames77 11d ago

It wasn't horrible just wasnt my cup of tea

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u/Youngandidiotic radio reddit 11d ago

That’s fair

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u/one_bean_hahahaha 11d ago

Elton John isn't my cup of tea and I would never buy tickets, but we scored two free box tickets once and had a blast because live music.

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u/Bladestorm04 11d ago

I definitely don't listen to his music regularly, but when he came to town tickets were a must buy for me! I knew he'd be so good and I danced the whole show

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u/Michael_DeSanta 11d ago

There is a Mariana Trench-sized gap between the enjoyment factor of box seats for Elton John vs any ticket to imagine dragons

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u/Niloc0905 Spotify 11d ago

Their first album was not that bad tbh. I feel like in 10 to 15 years people will look back at them with the same level of nostalgia as people now look at Nickelback.

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u/HeavyMetalHero 11d ago

I actually knew a kid who was a few years younger than me, and she was big into post-grunge, and she basically said Nickelback's first album before they got popular was a genre masterpiece, and then they gradually sold out and watered themselves down after it was borderline soft rock ballads that broke them into the mainstream. So, it may very well be a similar artistic trajectory.

To me, Imagine Dragons could not more clearly be writing their songs, with the intention of licensing them to commercials and movies. That's not a good or bad thing in and of itself, but their music library is so curated to that kind of thing, I can't help but feel like they actually "sound like a commercial."

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u/TheMadFlyentist Spotify 11d ago

she basically said Nickelback's first album before they got popular was a genre masterpiece, and then they gradually sold out and watered themselves down

True of Maroon 5 as well.

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u/anuncommontruth 11d ago

I saw Maroon 5 when they were still relatively unknown. They were billed 2nd on a weird fest, and Guster was the headliner. Songs for Jane wasn't out yet, so no one knew any of their hits.

Well, I don't know what happened, but Guster came on, and they basically said "Maroon 5 is gonna headline, they deserve it. They'll be the biggest band in the world one day."

The entire audience was just....stunned. a lot of people left. Boy, was that a mistake.

Maroon 5 was one of the best performances I have ever seen.

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u/TheMadFlyentist Spotify 11d ago

weird fest, and Guster was the headliner

Sounds about right - Guster is one of those bands that has a big following but the average person has never even heard of.

I love Guster though - have seen them live twice and they were incredible both times.

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u/anuncommontruth 11d ago

Oh man, you'll appreciate this story then.

I saw Ben Folds, Guster, and Rufus Wainright about 20 years ago. It was at an outdoor venue in Pittsburgh, then known as the IC Ligh Amphitheater. In between acts, they always played late 70s, early 80s rock, no matter who was performing (It's a yinzer thjng). So Bohemian Rhapsody comes on, and almost the entire audience starts singing. It is so loud and well done that Ben Folds comes out on stage and starts conducting the crowd. It was honestly pretty good, as Ben does this for his own songs at a lot of shows. But then Rufus and Guster come out on stage and start watching and clapping.

So, like, we were the band, and they were the audience. When the song ended, they all cheered for us. The energy was absolutely electric the rest of that show.

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u/synthetictim2 11d ago

I kind of feel bad that nickelback is such a meme. Like don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fan. However, musically they are actually pretty talented. If you get past the lyrics and cringey parts there is talent under there. Also they had that heavier song a few years ago that I genuinely didn’t hate. Like they could change things up if they wanted but they are also probably doing quite well earnings wise so why rock the boat?

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u/faceman2k12 11d ago

I've heard other musicians talk about the Nickleback meme thing, they are a hard working band making music that isn't for everyone but they sell out stadiums in every country, tour a lot (which is extremely hard work), They are good to their fans and deserve what they have earned. yes they are worth a Fuckton of money, but they're a platinum selling group, one fo the biggest rock acts on the planet but we all just ignore them and join in on the joke without even listening to their side of it.

Canadian metal legend Devin Townsend did some work for Chad helping him set up some home studio gear a couple of years back and had this to say about the whole thing., even got some Chad backing vocals on one of his tracks which is a Chad move in itself and a great show of mutual respect between musicians.

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u/StephentheGinger 11d ago

I shamelessly love imagine dragons. And nickelback

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u/Goducks91 11d ago edited 11d ago

My guilty pleasure is Imagine Dragons. I'll never admit that anywhere but here. Hahah

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u/KingJonathan 11d ago

I liked them right away when “Radioactive” came out but it’s been bleh since.

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u/palland0 11d ago

I must say I enjoyed most of "Night Visions", and some from Smoke+Mirrors (such as "Warriors"). But recently, I can't say I've heard one that stands out much.

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u/coredenale 11d ago

"Look at this gold record,

Every time I do it makes me laugh,"

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u/mastofred26 11d ago edited 11d ago

*diamond they are a DIAMOND selling band

Silver Side Up 10m+ US and 8m+ Global

Without this band and success of SSU, other bands on the Roadrunner Records would not have had the CHANCE to grow, such as Slipknot who were breaking out around that time.

(Source: me, I worked at roadrunner records for a decade)

Edit: hmm folks do not seem to be reading what I wrote. I am NOT saying Nickelback is responsible for Slipknot’s success. NB helped keep the label afloat. I don’t need folks to talk me SK was a platinum band but I would love to hear your thoughts on how P/L charts look for a record the size of Roadrunner back then. Plenty of albums can go platinum without much profit when you’re spending two commas on music videos.

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u/fffffffffffffuuu 11d ago edited 11d ago

wtf i thought slipknot was popular way before Nickelback?

edit: holy shit the album that got me into slipknot was Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses which came out in 2004. Nickelback has been releasing music since fucking 1996

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u/opeth10657 11d ago

Nickelback signed with RR in '99, same year Slipknot's 1st album came out

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u/mastofred26 11d ago

Times a bitch! All blends together - slipknot were absolutely getting massive, no doubt, but they were not making Nickelback money at that time.

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u/fffffffffffffuuu 11d ago

i mean, have they ever made nickelback money? I feel like Nickelback somehow has a much broader appeal across more demographics than a band like slipknot could hope to have. Isn’t that why everyone “hates” Nickelback? They’re just too… radio perfect?

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u/Desperate_Young3365 11d ago

No. Nickelback has sold 50 million albums, Slipknot has sold a little over 9 million.

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u/pacificnwbro 11d ago

I totally forgot they were on RR! I actually like a couple Nickelback songs, but I'll happily take the bad ones if it helped fuel RR. That label was my high school years.

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u/mastofred26 11d ago

SSU came out ON September 11th. That album is a wild ride. That album is a greatest hits

Definitely not for everyone! But folks don’t realize they have a song with a Dimebag Darrell solo after his tragic death.

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u/hardrocker943 11d ago

SSU is fucking awesome. I love SSU and The Long Road. All the Right Reasons was pretty good. Dark Horse was ok I guess. Didn't like many of the ones after that. I still listen to SSU fairly regularly.

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u/JacedFaced 11d ago

My issue with Nickelback is with their post SSU albums where it felt like everything they did sounded the same. They had some decent stuff pre-SSU, but they found the formula that sold records and milked it for millions. Good for Chad and the rest of the band, if you don't like the music turn the station, it's super easy.

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u/notanotherherofck 11d ago

You can say the same for a lot of bands, AC/DC comes to mind, I might not know their song but in 15sec I know it's them.

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u/baddoggg 11d ago

Are you telling me we were rewarded slipknot for Nickelback's success?

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u/somesketchykid 11d ago

No, they both signed go RR same year and Slipknot self titled 1st album went platinum the very next year. Slipknots success is their own

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u/Midwake 11d ago

“Look at this graph” one of the most banger meme videos of all time

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u/_toodamnparanoid_ 11d ago

And every time we do it makes us laugh.

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u/JonnyZhivago 11d ago

Nor should he

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u/boot2skull 11d ago

I don’t care for their music, but people are why they’re around and successful. Can’t deny that. We will crack jokes and he can wipe his tears with $100s.

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u/SaticoySteele 11d ago

Reminds me of the Frankie Muniz (Malcolm In The Middle) response to some rando's twitter insults:

Rando: "ur acting is just awful. sorry, but it is"

Frankie: "Yeah, but being retired with $40,000,000 at 19 has not been awful. Good luck moving out of your mom's house before you're 35."

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

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u/Smilewigeon 11d ago

MitM has aged fantastically well. I still regularly watch it. None of the cast need to doubt their performances there.

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u/swatsquat 11d ago

It's my feel good show. It never fails to make me laugh.

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u/Deskopotamus 11d ago

I agree, they have done pretty well for themselves, look at this graph.

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u/SaraHuckabeeSandwich 11d ago

Counterpoint: look at this graph

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u/TheSessionMan 11d ago

But he should thank Cancon regulations. Because of Cancon you couldn't listen to a rock station in Canada without hearing 3 Nickelback and 5 tragically hip songs an hour

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u/DistortedReflector 11d ago

You got a choice of:

  • Leader of Men

  • How You Remind Me

  • Rockstar

  • Photograph

And then a complete run through of Yer Favorites.

Bonus track plays of:

  • 54-40

  • Sloan

  • Mathew Sweet

  • Swollen Members

  • Alannis Morrissette

  • Nelly Furtado

  • Bran Van 3000

Fuck it, now I’m going to build my ultimate summer Canadian music playlist.

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u/JarvisFunk 11d ago

Do you mean Matthew Good lol? Hello Time Bomb was such a killer track

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u/torndownunit 11d ago edited 10d ago

Our Lady Peace, Finger 11, Barenaked ladies, the Watchman.

There's some I dug though. Big Wreck was a good band that benefited from CanCon and got played to hell . There was a chunk of time where some good stuff like Rheostatics benefited.

Edit: and for me personally I think teenage head could never be played enough.

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u/AnExpertInThisField 11d ago

Exactly. The Nickelback hate was/is a 101 course in Internet hive mind mentality. Personally, I don't care for their music. But were they truly the demonic scourge of rock music they were made out to be by seemingly everyone? I can think of a lot worse music.

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u/dong_tea 11d ago

The joke doesn't work if your example for terrible music is a band that no one has heard of. Nickelback was bland and very popular, thus making them the perfect target.

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u/KourteousKrome 11d ago edited 11d ago

Nickleback (and other butt rock stars of the time) were the Bud Light of music. Just kind of there, and it weirdly outsold all the superior products. Tasteless, though inoffensive.

Generally speaking, they weren't necessarily worse than other shitty radio rock music. Creed was another example. All of it was corporate schlock that was designed specifically to be catchy but without substance just to drive single sales.

My personal theory is that it happened because of the music industry crash of the 00s. Producers clamped down on creativity and pushed generic, templated sameness because their margins were so low. We're clawing back because of streaming services but in general the 00s and early 10s were a shit time to listen to the radio.

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u/nickstatus 11d ago

I think you're close, it had to do with the music industry crash. But that's only half the story. Mainstream rock music had become increasingly banal, commoditized, and mass produced, and at some point the producers overdid it, and people lost interest. Nickleback were the apex of this overly-produced garbage music. And as such, they kind of fit the role of fall guy.

I'd heard that Nickleback recently pivoted to a heavier sound. My friend described it as "metalcore", even. I wouldn't go that far, and I still don't like them, but they've definitely improved and evolved over the years.

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u/sleepykittypur 11d ago

San Quentin is a fucking banger and there's nothing you can say to convince me otherwise.

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u/bda22 11d ago

"taco bell gives me diarrhea" is also taught in that course

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u/klsi832 11d ago

‘How You Remind Me’ is good. So is that Spider-Man song.

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u/SweetDank 11d ago

"I am so high I can hear Heaven but Heaven don't hear me."

Never was much of a Nickelback fan but that is a pretty cool piece of poetry.

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u/futanari_kaisa 11d ago

Never Again was pretty good too.

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u/keanuereevesbeard 11d ago

Silver Side Up front to back slaps

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u/thatchers_pussy_pump 11d ago

I'll defend Silver Side Up to the grave. That album was everything it could be. Great heavy industrial sounds, great hard rock riffs, pretty solid songwriting, and nearly if not perfect production.

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u/drae- 11d ago

So does the state. First two albums were good.

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u/Mopman43 11d ago

I’m fond of ‘Burn it to the Ground’. Really like the opening guitar.

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u/Pvt_Hudson_ 11d ago

The Edmonton Oilers have used that song for their hype video package at home games for the last 3 or 4 years, its unreal. It gets the crowd super pumped.

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u/wcu25rs 11d ago

yep and throwing "Feeling Way Too Damn Good" out there too. Ive always thought that song was a banger.

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u/TheRipley78 11d ago

Hero, with Josey Scott. And no cap, I still listen to I Wanna Be A Rockstar.

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u/politicalstuff 11d ago edited 10d ago

The Nickelback hate was/is a 101 course in Internet hive mind mentality.

Eh, not really. I mean yeah, it's overblown, but if you were there at the time, it wasn't for nothing.

You have to understand that they blew up while radio and MTV were still relevant and before music was as fractured as it is now, so a lot of music was casually consumed on the radio, in public, on TV, etc. Nickelback was freaking EVERYWHERE. You could not escape them.

So, while now if you don't like music you just don't load it up on your Spotify on your phone or whatever and go on with your day. Then, they were EVERYWHERE. Every radio station played them every few minutes. They were on TV. They played in stores. Their songs were in freaking movie soundtracks. It was inescapable, so a song you just were meh about and would just ignore was assaulting your ears constantly, so people got resentful.

It's also not that Nickelback were terrible. It's that they were super disproportionately successful for how mediocre their music was, and they were overplayed to the extreme. A lot of the issue IMO was just a side of effect of when they happened to blow up. If they came out today they wouldn't have nearly the extreme views as they did at the time because the default ways people consume music are just different.

I personally am not a fan, but they have a couple bangers here and there.

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u/caninehere 11d ago

Just to add on to this. I'm Canadian and so is Nickelback. In Canada we have laws that 30% of radio content must be Canadian content. So if you listen to a rock station you hear a LOT of the same Canadian bands when they're popular.

Sometimes that isn't a bad thing, for example the Tragically Hip rule and their stuff would get played all the time. But then you have Nickelback. Fucking Nickelback. And their songs would get played all. The. Time. Even if they had a song that wasn't awful (and I do think their music, from what I've heard, ranges from mediocre to awful), being forced to hear it on the radio will make you hate it.

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u/ThePencilRain 11d ago

Nickleback, finger 11, our lady peace...on constant rotation.

Those were dark days

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u/Ok_Skill_1195 11d ago

To reiterate what you're saying, Imagine Dragons is basically the new Nickelback. They get shit not because they're bad, but because they're song are a little generic and clearly formulated to be highly commercial.

They don't get nearly the same degree of hatred though because the music landscape is entirely different. You don't feel like you are surrounded by imagine dragons 24/7. You notice them soundtracking a commercial and then you go "oh did I forget to turn adblocker off?" and go about your day

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u/SkullheadMary 11d ago

Exactly this. I worked as a convenience/drug store inventory counter in the early 2000s and I’d spend my whole day having to listen to their bland repetitive songs at work in the stores. We’d spend a lot of time on the road between stores and guess what was on the radio all day long? Fucking Nickelback. They were relentless lol

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u/thegroovemonkey 11d ago

A lot of their songs also sound the same so it felt like hearing the same song over and over and over well past the expiration date of butt rock. They absolutely wore me down over time.

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u/politicalstuff 11d ago

Yep, they found their formula and milked it. I don't blame them, but i got tired of hearing That Nickelback Song, whichever one, every 20 minutes.

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u/toiletmannersBTV 11d ago

It's this. They were being played every 30 minutes on every rock radio station for years. It didn't start off completely awful, but it certainly ended that way.

And for the record, I completely gave up on the radio because of Green Day's Wake Me Up When September Ends. Not a terrible song, but constantly being played.

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u/jtmarshiii 11d ago

Black Hole Sun was it for me and I still can't listen to that song and enjoy it. When it was playing on everything all the time. Home late after bar and told my friend why I disliked Black Hole Sun while it was played on MTV only to have it repeated after the commercials. Then we fell asleep and when my friend woke up to get ready for work switch on the TV... Black Hole Sun was on and he woke me up to tell me I was right.

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u/rolandfoxx 11d ago

I'll take it a step further; Nickelback wouldn't even have blown up today because they'd be completely lost in all the other mediocre bar bands with a Bandcamp page.

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u/realjones888 11d ago

"How You Remind Me" was the most played song on radio in the 00s, and it didn't even come out until mid 2001. It was on every station for hard rock to easy listening you couldn't escape it.

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u/Cobbertson 11d ago

I like your pants around your feet And I like the dirt that's on your knees And I like the way you still say "Please" While you're looking up at me

-Chad Kroeger

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u/rocketsauce2112 11d ago

Who exactly asked him to apologize?

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u/OvercookedGongShow 11d ago

And what the hell is on Joey's head?

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u/Zabunia 11d ago

"'The thing that was on Joey’s head was a champagne bucket that my wife and I got Chad for his housewarming, and it was somehow secured to his head by what appears to be a bra – I'm not sure about that, but I think it’s a bra,' recalls Kroeger." - https://tonedeaf.thebrag.com/nickelback-explains-joeys-head-photograph/

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u/flubberFuck 11d ago

Thanks for the info. Never knew that.

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u/Mogwai10 11d ago

The only thing I’ll ever laugh about nickelback related things is that look at this graph video on YouTube.

I can’t not fall down with laughter when he sings that.

My god it’s perfect and I’m glad life gave us that video.

Oh hell if someone hasn’t seen it. Please enjoy.

https://youtu.be/sIlNIVXpIns

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u/WH0_what_where 11d ago

My husband is a singer in a rock band. Played the video clip, my son’s says “it sounds like Dad”, husband is not amused, I’m crying. Thank you 😂

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u/playtio 11d ago

The Chad Kroeger vs the virgin hater

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u/DodGamnBunofaSitch 11d ago

but does he have anything to do with the Kroeger grocery chain?

it'd be the chad kroeger vs the virgin walmart

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u/mejibray860 11d ago

Weirdly enough, there's some interesting overlap between the two Kroegers

There's a really interesting video that graphs out all the similarities:

https://youtu.be/sIlNIVXpIns

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u/DrFunkensteinberg 11d ago

Look at this graaaappphhh

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u/Kurwasaki12 11d ago

The super market conglomerate is Kroger, not Kroeger.

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u/CreepyBlackDude 11d ago edited 10d ago Gold

"Somewhere along the way of their highly-successful, record-breaking career, Nickelback became the butt of all jokes. While the reasons why may forever remain a mystery, frontman Chad Kroeger, has a couple of ideas why the group has such vocal haters."

Actually, the reasons are very well known:

  1. Nickelback was EVERYWHERE in the early 2000's. Specifically, "This Is How You Remind Me" was played on every radio station every day for a couple years straight, in the era before YouTube and Spotify where the radio was still the main way to listen to music you didn't own. You could not escape it. Even if you liked it, it probably grated on you to hear it for the 10th time in a week...and if you were just "meh" the first time, you wanted to gouge your eardrums out by the last.
  2. There was a joke made by Brian Posehn on Comedy Central's Tough Crowd With Colin Quinn where he said, "No one talks about the studies that show that bad music makes people violent, like Nickelback makes me want to kill Nickelback." This should have been just a one-off quip...except that Comedy Central played it in its promos for the show which ran repeatedly for months on end. Kids started repeating it in their schools, and the Nickelback hate grew rapidly from there.

That being said, Nickelback very much acknowledge that it was that very hate that kept them relevant for so long when other bands of their era have long since gone by the wayside. They also really enjoy some of the more creative jokes at their expense--they've talked about "Look At This Graph" in a positive light many times.

P.S. - I sourced that Tough Crowd link from an old Reddit post by u/babycarrotman which goes into much greater detail on this very subject, so big credit to him.

Edit - Wanted to point out that while it wasn't quite on the level of Nickelback, the band Coldplay had the exact same thing happen to them a couple of years later for the exact same reasons, with the same result of them being hated by everyone for a while. Just replace the Brian Posehn joke with a Paul Rudd line from The 40-Year Old Virgin: "You know how I know you're gay? You like Coldplay."

I'm certain there are other examples of bands that were hated by everyone that can be traced back to specific lines or jokes. If you can think of anymore, let me know.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

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u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS 11d ago

Ah, so along with red haired people, gay guys, and Jews, they got South Parked to a bunch of 12 year olds without the actual south park (til later)

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u/jepayotehi 11d ago

Never made it as a wise man

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u/Accidental_Taco 11d ago

Little Women musta damn near killed you

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u/Enthusiastically 11d ago edited 11d ago

I'm gonna be a contrarian and say good for anyone making a living playing music.

Sold out? Take the money and run. Whether it's Nickelback or whoever wrote that baby shark song or even Kenny G pissing his bullshit sax all over Louis Armstrong's recordings and pretending it's art, like he's Andy Warhol's new lover. If you can turn your music into food for your family to eat, good for you.

I've got no hate in my heart at all for any working musicians except for the abusers and for Kenny G. And even with him it’s like good for you for eating from your music.

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u/deathschemist spoot. 11d ago

my favourite example of an act "selling out" is chumbawamba, who went commerical, had a massive hit, and then went right back to shitting all over the industry, just with a big bag of cash now.

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u/Enthusiastically 11d ago

If you are a starving artist and have a chance to sell out. Do it. Be intelligent about it but do it.

Your street cred with people who read pitchfork every day won’t pay your bills. Hating people who sold out in music is like living in a 50 person town and hating people who moved to a big city and are succeeding. It’s a bad way to be.

I’ll check that act out. Never gonna put on a nickelback album but every sell out is a bunch of musicians working full time, which hell yeah.

I wish indie and alternative scenes would steal a little swagger from hip hop here.

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u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS 11d ago

He is overplayed but I appreciate someone like Ed Sheeran for this. He straight up says that certain songs he makes have one goal and one goal only: getting loads of cash being played at weddings. And then he can do singles that he likes more without the record label rioting.

Playing 10 billboard bait songs and one song personal to you in front of a sold out crowd is still one good song, and that's a lot more than 99.999999% of people get to do.

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u/10019245 11d ago

Aah Chumbawamba, my childhood love! I had their albums before Tubthumper came out, no-one ever believed me in school when I was like "I've been listening to these for years!"

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u/sonofgildorluthien 11d ago

whoever wrote that baby shark song

It's a dude from South Korea named Kim Min-Seok; he's worth over $300 million now.

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u/TheTimeCactus 11d ago

Which is bullshit because Baby Shark (in both melody and choreography) has been around for much longer than the recent version that went viral. We sang a bastardized version at Bible camp in the 90s and definitely weren't the first to do it. Spoiler: The family of sharks eat you, but it's cool cuz you go to heaven and party with Jesus.

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u/InquisitaB 11d ago

Chad Kroeger feels genuine about his music. He reminds me, in a way, of Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park. Optimistic and proud of his music. If you want to watch some incredibly wholesome content, check out this video of Mike Shinoda reacting to kids listening to Linkin Park.

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u/19whale96 11d ago

Mike is the Keanu Reeves of the Rock industry

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u/OllyTwist 11d ago

This was great, thanks for posting.

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u/k0uch 11d ago

He said it was in 2017, so it would have been at most months before Chester hung himself. Sad to think it’s smiles and good times, and then life changes

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u/InquisitaB 11d ago

I definitely thought about that as I watched it.

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u/Commemorative_Pasta 11d ago

Nickelback is much as over-hated as creed. The dudes found the magic formula to get their music massive and they achieved it. No ghost songwriters, no convinient change of genres, no use of artificial instruments to create sounds.

You want raw and technically complex songs with no pop appealing? go listen to the dilinger escape plan, animals as leaders or meshuggah instead.

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u/kevlarbuns 11d ago

In chads defense, he seems much more likeable and self aware than Scott Stapp did during Creed’s moment.

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u/Pyrochazm 11d ago

Stapp was completely full of himself.

Don't get me wrong, I liked creed at the time, but the Jesus poses he did all the time screamed egomaniac.

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u/kevlarbuns 11d ago

Lol, I was so committed to hating them. Then a buddy put in a CD and wouldn’t answer who it was, said “just listen”. It was What If, and I was absolutely loving the first 20 seconds. Dude tricked me into recognizing Creed could write a good song or half a dozen.

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u/Pyrochazm 11d ago

What if is great. Beautiful is another I really liked. Tremonti is a riff monster.

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u/BlackIsTheSoul 11d ago

Alter bridge ftw

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u/DudeOverHere 11d ago edited 11d ago

I’ll listen to anything Myles Kennedy sings.

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u/kevlarbuns 11d ago

Those riffs won me over. What if has some that would be at home in different kinds of metal. Bit of thrash, bit of groove, bit of orchestral. Great guitar showcase.

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u/calfan5 11d ago

I listened to Human Clay all the time in the early/mid 2000s. I think it was my 2nd CD I owned as a kid. Love that album, the riffs are indeed awesome

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u/duskywindows 11d ago

I don't give a fuck: "Bullets" fucks SO hard, and I will absolutely blast it as loudly as possible every once in a while, headbanging till my neck snaps.

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u/bigpeechtea 11d ago

Look at his hair too, dude absolutely saw himself as the second coming of Christ

Like you can have long hair that’s fine. But to be a religious nut with long hair and constantly pose like your Jesus while you have millions of followers? Yea he thought he was a messiah

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u/UX-Edu 11d ago

I’m gonna go see Animals as Leaders in a couple months. Should be a packed house, but it’s not a particularly massive venue. I don’t like Nickelback very much but they definitely drew a crowd and got paid. Can’t really argue with the scoreboard

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u/Enthusiastically 11d ago

You don't need that many fans when every third fan buys a 2,000 dollar guitar from your guitar concepts shop.

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u/dwilkes827 11d ago

I haven't seen Animals as Leaders yet but I saw Abasi on a tour with other guitar players and he played some AaL songs, you're in for a treat. The dude is a wizard on guitar. His thumb is magical

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u/darkness1685 11d ago

There's plenty of good and accessible music in between nickelback and DEP.

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u/CorgiDaddy42 11d ago

Ehhhh I think the bigger problem with Creed is Scott Stapp is a dick. There even used to be a website dedicated to how much of a dick he was, named ScottStappisadick dot com.

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u/GladiatorUA 11d ago

no use of artificial instruments to create sounds

What does this have to do with anything? Also, it's rarely a guarantee.

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u/Datathrash 11d ago

They mean that they only use hand carved bone flutes and gourds strung with animal gut from their own kills. Not some fancy electric instruments with effects boxes and highly produced recordings like some kinda fakers!

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u/DC_Disrspct_Popeyes 11d ago

Honestly can't recall the last time I've seen someone reference Dillinger escape plan.

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u/almosthuman2021 11d ago

Creed is another one that’s puzzled me I don’t like them but they haven’t released an album since 2009 and their last hit was in like 2003. It was so bizarre the hate because I often forgot they existed before the memes which I think actually kept them relevant lol

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u/neverw1ll 11d ago

I remember the biggest criticism at the time was that Scott Stapp sounded too much like Eddie Vedder.

I'll be the first to admit, there's a lot of Creed songs that slap. Alter Bridge is great too. Mark Tremonti is a monster on guitar and writes sick riffs.

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u/spect0rjohn 11d ago

Well… there’s also the Scott is Jesus imagery that was a tiny bit heavy handed.

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u/Confident_Bluejay 11d ago

Creed’s music was also emotional and a tad melodramatic which makes them easy targets. But musically, they are pretty good and wrote catchy tunes.

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u/DamnitBobby2008 11d ago

It's been a while

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u/btener412 11d ago

Isn’t that Staind?

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u/DamnitBobby2008 11d ago

Goddammit, you're right.

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u/dwilkes827 11d ago

This is the reason people call these bands generic and formulaic, can't even tell them apart lol

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u/mider-span 11d ago

They are the Olive Garden of rock music.

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u/desde1984 11d ago

Wow, I totally get this. I've never had a horrible meal at Olive Garden. I've never had an exceptionally great one either, but the food is not horrible and they are consistent.

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u/dirtyculture808 11d ago

Because it’s full of butter/fat, impossible to hate that

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u/slippin_park 11d ago

When you hate it, you're family?

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u/big_hungry_joe 11d ago

So there are breadsticks at their shows?

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u/JerHat 11d ago

Nor should he, Nickelback makes generic rock music... it works... isn't great, but whatever.

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u/[deleted] 11d ago edited 11d ago

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u/International_Jello 11d ago

That song isn’t about looking at photographs lol, it’s about never being able to truly go home. I think that qualifies as a heavy thought

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u/kevlarbuns 11d ago

My guy is gonna have the Guy Fieri bounce-back. The pendulum of ‘cool’ favors longevity and consistency.

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u/false-identification 11d ago

Maybe but Guy won a lot of people over with his charity.

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u/user_account_deleted 11d ago

Was Guy ever disliked? I always thought the meme was that he LOOKED ridiculous, but I also thought he was mostly viewed as a decent, entertaining dude.

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u/Pixilatedlemon 11d ago

I’m a sucker for an unthreatening corny famous dude like Guy. I love that he just does his own thing.

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u/user_account_deleted 11d ago

I watched the shit out of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. And it's cool he has his style, but I'll be damned if it isn't objectively goofy AF lol.

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u/Pixilatedlemon 11d ago

He’s so goofy but it’s part of his brand. He doesn’t have a single fan that would deny that he’s a goofball, it’s just part of the appeal. I just dream of a better tomorrow where people can be corny goofballs without being disliked so to speak haha

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u/[deleted] 11d ago edited 19h ago

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u/ACardAttack The Beatles 11d ago

Nick Cage

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u/kevlarbuns 11d ago

Yeah, he’s another great example for sure. Keanu. Blink 182. Etc.

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u/anderoogigwhore 11d ago

I saw Nickelback a few years ago (I went for Seether who were the support act). Honestly, they are actually a fun band live. They played the five songs I like and Chad had some banter with the crowd.

Their opening video clips on the screen was basically 'no one likes us and we dont care, we get paid to play music' and Chad had a roadie whose job during the show was to make Jaegerbombs and bring the jug out to him on stage. If ANYONE thinks they take themselves seriously they are being trolled.

That being said, I fucking hate 'Rockstar' with every fibre of my being.

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u/InsuranceInner3040 11d ago edited 11d ago

There is a LOT worse music than Nickelback out there being mass consumed.

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u/selicos 11d ago edited 11d ago

Into The Night with Santana just shreds

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u/Riker87 11d ago

Just gonna throw this out there, Chad’s song he wrote for Spider-Man 2 is one of my favorite songs from the early 2000s.