Why Are Nickelback So Hated?

Second only to The Beatles when it comes to the 2000s biggest-selling foreign act on the Billboard charts, Canadian quintet Nickelback have also sold 50 million records, picked up 12 Juno Awards and scored two number one albums in the US since arriving on their Hanna hometown’s rock circuit in 1996. And yet there appears to be less shame in admitting that you’re an obsessive fan of Rebecca Black than confessing to an admiration for Chad Kroeger and company.

Indeed, the group’s name is almost regarded as a curse word by many of their biggest detractors. A pro-union protestor recently decided that the most effective way of criticizing the town’s mayor was to hold up a placard that read ‘Rahm Emanuel likes Nickelback.’ 50,000 people signed a petition last year to prevent, unsuccessfully, the band from performing at a Detroit Lions’ half-time show. And the man who had to be rescued by firefighters after falling 40 feet into a gorge was treated as a laughing stock for the fact his accident was as a result of trying to sneak into Nickelback’s Saratoga show.

So what have the band done to merit such a hostile reaction? Well, their astonishing success has undoubtedly played a part. The likes of Creed, Staind and Matchbox Twenty all served up a similarly unsubtle and watered-down take on the grunge sound of the early 90s, but even though they all achieved chart-topping success too, the fact that they have all either split up or faded away from the mainstream consciousness means that they’re not held in the same disregard.

Nickelback, however, have remained a constant fixture on both the charts and mainstream radio ever since “How You Remind Me” sailed to the top spot in 2002. Despite failing to progress their sound in any way, they have continued to score at least one Top 10 hit from every subsequent album up until 2011’s Here and Now, which still rung up the cash registers selling 225,000 copies in its first week.

Inescapable for over ten years, it’s perhaps understandable why fans of other alt-rock outfits may feel a little aggrieved at how a group, who very rarely deviate from sometimes misogynistic tales of sex and partying and an over-polished generic formula, can command such high-profile attention for so long.

To give them their dues, the band aren’t completely lacking in self-awareness when it comes to their complete absence of credibility. The video for “This Afternoon” sees a bunch of geeks organizing a party only for the leader of the group to appear crestfallen when he discovers that the entertainment will be provided by none other than Nickelback.

This rare display of humor is all well and good, but the group don’t appear in any rush to overturn the results of a recent Tastebuds.fm poll which placed them ahead of Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Ke$ha as the biggest musical turn-off. Their most recent LP may have dabbled in disco and power-pop, but the majority of its eleven tracks were interchangeable with those of Silver Side Up, The Long Road and All The Right Reasons.

But it’s fair to say that the relentless vitriol is aimed just as much at frontman Chad Kroeger as it is the band itself. Perhaps it’s the mullet he sported, the kind of which hadn’t been seen since the days of Billy Ray Cyrus, during the band’s commercial breakthrough, which first made him a target of derision. But his gruff vocal delivery has also come under fire for its ‘constipated’ tendencies, whilst his recent marriage to Avril Lavigne, ten years his junior, has also done little to dispel his ‘creepy man of rock’ reputation.

Point-blank refusing to acknowledge any modern advances in rock music since the 21st Century, you almost have to admire the band for managing to remain so consistently successful whilst so resolutely sticking to their guns. But they’re going to have to do more than chop Kroeger’s golden locks off if they ever want to avoid being the butt of the rock scene joke.