Everyone has at least one artist they absolutely loathe, just as much as they have artists they adore. Many artists, at least at some point in their peak years, attract equal parts devotees and detractors. Take Justin Bieber, who’s having an inexplicable no, he’s cool now moment despite a widespread previous hatred, which itself was preceded by religious fervor from preteen girls and abhorrence from anyone else.
No platinum-selling artist is always hated, all the time, though.
Except Nickelback, who constantly sell millions despite everyone on the web going out of their way to mock the band. Just today, in response to the Islamophobia thrown around as a response to the ISIS terrorist attacks in Paris, the above meme was making the rounds.
VH1.com’s Christopher Rosa has a theory: misogynist lyrics. He’s compiled a list of compelling examples, all with women being used as one-dimensional sex objects. Here’s a taste from “Figure You Out:”
This doesn’t hold water. The sexualization of women is everywhere in pop music, as is painting these sex objects one-dimensional. But, as for overt devaluation of the agency of a woman, you can’t do much better than Tyler Farr’s 2013 hit “Redneck Crazy.” Or, as it should really be renamed, “The Domestic Abuser’s Anthem: Why Do You Make Me Beat You?:” [LISTEN]
It continues with every single stanza, protagonist virtually saying, I’m going to drunkenly put you in a hospital. Chad Kroeger’s (Nickelback) revelation of his affinity for “pants around [the] feet” between consenting adults never hurt anybody. But there are entire arenas filled with country fans screaming Tyler Farr’s “Redneck Crazy” garbage.
People probably hate Nickelback because not only is every song the same, which is true for plenty of generic AOR, but their sound is a copy of a copy of a copy of grunge. Top 40 hits love to recycle, but there’s usually either a limit to each sound or chord progression they farm, or they give it a rest for a while.
Look at “Happy” and its resurrection of a dormant beloved Motown groove. Both Meghan Trainor (“All About That Bass”) and Taylor Swift (“Shake It Off”) then further gentrified the same groove for their own gains. Though now they’re all giving it a break again, before too many listeners catch on to the homogeneity and repetition.
We’ve finally said enough of the bastardized imitations of Kurt Cobain’s voice because rock radio has been dominated by that sound literally nonstop since the early 90s. Save for when it took a brief backseat to emo.
Nickelback aren’t poster-boys for misogyny — they’re poster-boys for rock radio’s stagnation. Don’t blame them. Blame the eight-million people who bought their record.
