Nickelback Defenders Unite

If anyone ever brings up this article, I will profusely deny its existence.

For those of you who are unaware of the band Nickelback, let me provide some context. Nickelback, per my brief Wikipedia research, is a Canadian rock band formed in 1995. In 2001, it had its first Billboard Number One hit. In 2003, it had a number 7 hit on Billboard. And in 2005, Nickelback released an album that had 3 songs go to the top ten on the charts.

Nickelback is known for sucking.

Seriously. The internet users in the early 2000s went online and decided to make fun of Nickelback. They made blog posts about how Nickelback sucked, wrote op-eds, and used them for early meme fodder. Everything I heard about Nickelback from Tumblr to Facebook (the social medias of the time) was about how much they sucked. I could use more creative ways to say “suck” or “are bad”, but honestly, those two were the terms almost exclusively used to describe Nickelback. This phenomenon of making fun of Nickelback as a terrible band has grown beyond its original intent of any grounded criticism of the band, which mainly stemmed (for my understanding) from a dislike of their perceived lack of originality and their mix of genres that made for a hodge-podge of country, rock, and pop. They were made fun of by pop artists, by alternative artists, country artists, and every rockstar. It grew into legitimate ire and hate for a band that topped the charts continually. I’ve heard this undeserved hate of Nickelback for almost two decades now. And the time has come for my thesis and my most controversial take that I’m willing to put into writing publicly:

Why Nickelback’s Problem was NOT Sucking, but Rather, Timing

Lots of things suck. A lot of things are bad. The scale for sucking and for being bad is indeed one of great extremes. For example, genocide. Genocide is on the scale of sucking and being bad. Another example? Someone ugly being in the back of your favorite photograph of you is also on the scale of sucking and being bad. Now, can you see how widespread this scale is? Those are both on the same scale. Ok. So.

Nickelback doesn’t suck. I’ll say it. Again, if you read the first paragraph, you can see that they had some support by the public too. They had 6 top ten hits and 19 top 100 songs on Billboard throughout their career. Which is not bad. Now, the public is not always right about what does and does not suck. Sometimes the public loves things that suck and/or are bad, like redacted thing I think sucks but might get me in trouble. So, for Nickelback hater argument’s sake, maybe Nickelback did suck. Even if they made bangers like the song “Photograph”.

But, here is my main point on the Nickelback discourse. Even if, even if, Nickelback sucked. Their problem was not sucking. Their problem was sucking too early.

Boom. There it is.

Let me explain.

Lots of things today in popular culture suck. Lots of movies, TV, music, and more. Lots of them just suck. Sorry. It’s true. But here’s the thing. You’re still allowed to like them.

And that’s the difference. It’s that simple. We now live in a time when we can like things that are bad, and we don’t have to like them secretly or pretend to enjoy them ironically.

Let me give you two examples. The first is popular reality TV. The second is Mr. Worldwide aka Mr. 305 aka Pitbull. Reality TV has been around for a while, but nowadays, when someone mentions watching The Bachelor, Love Island (UK, usually), or The Real Housewives, we don’t immediately start making fun of them. In fact, loads and loads of people watch these shows and enjoy them. And there’s nothing wrong with that. And that’s the difference. In 2005, there would be something wrong with that. People used to have to defend reality TV constantly. Some still take issue with the medium, but for the most part, you don’t have to immediately follow up “I watch The Bachelor every Monday” with “I know it’s bad, but I just can’t stop watching it!”

No. You get to like what you like and watch what you watch.

Pitbull is like that too. People always thought Pitbull sucked and was really goofy. But you know what? Pitbull makes absolutely certified smashes. Complete bangers that make you want to fist bump until the club lights turn back on. And that’s ok. His music can be bad. It can suck. But you can love it.

Nickelback was just like Pitbull. Enjoyed by the masses while reaching some great career success, but with a counterpoint always thrown in that the music wasn’t “real” or “good”. But Pitbull stuck around in the spotlight long enough for people to catch up and say, “I like things that suck, and you can too.” I insist that you don’t read this article with anyone who loves double entendres around.

Anyhow, I feel bad for Nickelback. I think they were too early. They could have come around later to a time in which anime is worn by rappers as a badge of pride, not something the quiet kid really loves and gets bullied for. They could have come when having friends over to watch trash reality TV became the new form of dinner parties. But instead, they came in 2005. And the rest is history, far away in the future.

Nickelback put out some damn hits. And they created some incredible meme fodder. And maybe they sucked. But to hate them for sucking? That, my dear readers, is a real shame. You’ve gotta be somebody who likes to take the winds out of other people’s sails for that. If everyone cared, Nickelback would finally get the love they deserve, suck or no suck.

On this wonderful Sunday, go forth and listen to and watch and consume all the media you want, even if it sucks. As long as you like it.

Well, actually, I disagree with that last paragraph now because it kind of brings up the point of why we’re losing some creative juices in the industry and…I’ll just end the post. Take it at face value.

I’ll have to delete this post someday anyhow…can’t let anyone know I’m a Nickelback defender. It’s our little secret.

PS.

I snuck in a lot of Nickelback song titles in here. I hope you spotted all of them. Or, literally any of them.

I can basically promise you that I will never post about Nickelback ever again, so feel free to disregard this.