I’ve always noticed growing up that there seems to always be one band that music fans seem to randomly focus their hate on disproportionately, often for little reason beyond “because fuck you that’s why”.
When I first entered middle school, it was Quiet Riot. Then Winger. Creed. Nickelback. I’m sure I’m missing some in the middle, but you get the idea. There was always one band that everybody just focused their hate on, and god help you if you were actually a fan of the band because you were bullied relentlessly and labelled a “poser”. And the thing is…most of the time, these bands weren’t that bad. They were mostly cookie-cutter, middle of the road bands who brought nothing really new to the table, but they weren’t terrible either. But they got a disproportionate amount of hate for merely existing.
Right. But why did those bands get the hate when there were dozens of other bands around doing the exact same thing? That’s the point. The amount of hate those bands received was disproportionate compared to others doing the same thing, for no other reason beyond “because fuck this band in particular.”
Smashmouth and Imagine Dragons would fit too. It seems every few years there’s a band everyone decides they like and then a few years later everyone suddenly hates them.
Creed gets the hate for being an overtly Christian band.
Some of their songs are alright, but the 100% Jesus 100% of the time is fucking exhausting.
Nickelback gets the hate because they constantly recycled songs. The same background music to different lyrics. All so that they could get more radio play or some shit.
Which is what really drove the hate. These bands got a disproportionate amount of radio play.
Metal did that for years and hardly ever got dinged. Change some chords around and give it a new edgy chorus and different drum solo. We didn’t GAF. Ohh did you hear that new double bass line? WOAH.
This particular take (repetitive nickelback) originated from Karl Puschmann in 2017. He was comparing ALL of their 89 songs. You’d find the same for most bands that make it. Nobody is making 100 unique songs if they’re writing their own stuff.
G&R and BonJovi were full of repetition. G&R released multiple versions of the same song on two albums and pulled it off (don’t cry UUI 1&2). BJ Blaze of glory was huge, but most of the album was the same slide guitar, same chords, same theme.
For nickelback, there’s some obvious stuff in there like Someday / How you remind me. But even if you only take the top stuff outside of those two, there’s plenty of variety in beats, styles, tone. Photograph, Rockstar, San Quentin, and Faraway are quite unique compared with each other.
But like OP mentioned, He re-uses that gravely rolling of vowels in every style. But if you then go back and look at old Aerosmith or Metallica (before black). They consistently voiced things the same album to album.
IMO, it sounds a lot like Kroeger is whining when he’s singing and a lot of people don’t have much of a stomach for that. He sounds fine, the songs are catchy, the lyrics aren’t miserable, but it just grates on you. I think it’s a lot of subconscious effect because there are TONS of articles asking why people hate nickelback, but there are too many different consensuses for all the hate AND to have all the sales for it to be as easy as formulaic songs against the b-roll on their album.
I’ve always noticed growing up that there seems to always be one band that music fans seem to randomly focus their hate on disproportionately, often for little reason beyond “because fuck you that’s why”.
When I first entered middle school, it was Quiet Riot. Then Winger. Creed. Nickelback. I’m sure I’m missing some in the middle, but you get the idea. There was always one band that everybody just focused their hate on, and god help you if you were actually a fan of the band because you were bullied relentlessly and labelled a “poser”. And the thing is…most of the time, these bands weren’t that bad. They were mostly cookie-cutter, middle of the road bands who brought nothing really new to the table, but they weren’t terrible either. But they got a disproportionate amount of hate for merely existing.
Sounds like you know exactly why they catch so much hate.
Right. But why did those bands get the hate when there were dozens of other bands around doing the exact same thing? That’s the point. The amount of hate those bands received was disproportionate compared to others doing the same thing, for no other reason beyond “because fuck this band in particular.”
Smashmouth and Imagine Dragons would fit too. It seems every few years there’s a band everyone decides they like and then a few years later everyone suddenly hates them.
Creed gets the hate for being an overtly Christian band.
Some of their songs are alright, but the 100% Jesus 100% of the time is fucking exhausting.
Nickelback gets the hate because they constantly recycled songs. The same background music to different lyrics. All so that they could get more radio play or some shit.
Which is what really drove the hate. These bands got a disproportionate amount of radio play.
Metal did that for years and hardly ever got dinged. Change some chords around and give it a new edgy chorus and different drum solo. We didn’t GAF. Ohh did you hear that new double bass line? WOAH.
This particular take (repetitive nickelback) originated from Karl Puschmann in 2017. He was comparing ALL of their 89 songs. You’d find the same for most bands that make it. Nobody is making 100 unique songs if they’re writing their own stuff.
G&R and BonJovi were full of repetition. G&R released multiple versions of the same song on two albums and pulled it off (don’t cry UUI 1&2). BJ Blaze of glory was huge, but most of the album was the same slide guitar, same chords, same theme.
For nickelback, there’s some obvious stuff in there like Someday / How you remind me. But even if you only take the top stuff outside of those two, there’s plenty of variety in beats, styles, tone. Photograph, Rockstar, San Quentin, and Faraway are quite unique compared with each other.
But like OP mentioned, He re-uses that gravely rolling of vowels in every style. But if you then go back and look at old Aerosmith or Metallica (before black). They consistently voiced things the same album to album.
IMO, it sounds a lot like Kroeger is whining when he’s singing and a lot of people don’t have much of a stomach for that. He sounds fine, the songs are catchy, the lyrics aren’t miserable, but it just grates on you. I think it’s a lot of subconscious effect because there are TONS of articles asking why people hate nickelback, but there are too many different consensuses for all the hate AND to have all the sales for it to be as easy as formulaic songs against the b-roll on their album.
Repetitive Nickelback wasn’t “discovered” in 2017.
There were radio stations back in 2004 who would do the trick where you play two Nickelback songs, sync the music, and cross fade back and forth.
You could do that trick with more than one pair, but to my knowledge couldn’t do three songs at once…
Creed gets hate becayse the music is cookie cutter and it’s that bullshit form of performative Christianity that has no actual faith behind it.