LEAVE NICKELBACK ALONE
Enough with the jokes already
As the band the entire planet loves to hate, Nickelback is a conflation of sentimental rock and embarrassing irony. Last week, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced his social network’s new AI technology, introducing “Jarvis,” voiced by Morgan Freeman, as the Siri to your social-media needs. In a promo video, Zuckerberg asks Jarvis to play “some good Nickelback songs.” The system responds, “I’m afraid I can’t do that — there are no good Nickelback songs.” Sick burn, Jarvis. While mildly amusing, jokes about Nickelback are kind of played out. They’ve been an international punchline for so long, you’d figure they’d be used to it by now. In 2011, over 50,000 people signed a petition to have them removed as the halftime performance for a Detroit Lions game. More recently, a P.E.I. police department used the band’s music as a threat to prevent locals from driving drunk. And it’s not even Facebook’s first swipe at the band either. One Facebook user devised a way for you to identify all your friends who are Nickelback fans and swiftly unfriend them. While the band has yet to comment on Facebook’s DISSlike, Avril Lavigne, Kroeger’s ex-wife, did so in a tweet, choosing not only to remind the world that she still very much exists, but that we should all leave Nickelback alone. While suggesting Zuckerberg is “allowed” his musical opinion, she found his “jab at Nickelback is in poor taste,” even going so far as to call it bullying. “When you have a voice like yours, you may want to consider being more responsible with promoting bullying, especially given what’s going on in the world today,” she wrote, ending her stern message with the following hashtags: #SayNoToBullying, #TheJokeIsOld, #NickelbackHasSoldOver50MillionAlbums.
Yes, their music is infuriatingly safe and hit-focused, yet still evokes that feeling of finding gum underneath your desk or grease between the booths in fast-food restaurants. And so their image feels insincere, lacking charm.
But Lavigne has got a point there: The band is enormous. In addition to selling a whopping 50 million-plus albums, they have put together some of the biggest rock concert tours ever. Billboard once described the group as the “most consistent touring rock act to break through this millennium.” But who can be blamed for the nickels upon nickels Nickelback has earned while out on the road? Fans. Every single shameless one.
While there is nothing easier (or more warranted) in this world than calling out frontman Chad Kroeger’s guttural moans and noodle-meets-Jesus hair, one wonders is it fair to their fans, who are simply trying to get by and enjoy a few poorly rhymed rock ballads? There’s an element of classism involved in such mockery.
Yes, Nickelback has songs with such easily detestable lyrics as “We’ll hang out in the coolest bars, in the VIP with the movie stars,” and “Kim’s the first girl I kissed, I was so nervous that I nearly missed.” But let’s zero in on all those sweaty, exhilarated faces singing along to said songs, spittle flying. These are the same people who wouldn’t mind having a lock of Kroeger’s noodle hair, who show up at concerts in ill-fitting, decades-old band shirts, heavily buckled leather jackets and championship sweatshirts. They’re working blue-collar jobs and a night at a Nickelback concert is a real night out on the town, when all their worries become clouded and float away in a pool of Kroeger’s heaving moans, so gravelly you wouldn’t be able to tell if he was experiencing a particularly good or particularly poor night of pleasure.
And let’s be real, it has actually got to the point that a Nickelback joke is out of touch, only uttered by those desperately searching for icebreakers at house parties. Which is not to say “bullying” Nickelback is no longer funny — it will always be funny. But sometimes, like the band’s sentimentality, you’ve got to think of the people.
So while it’s fine to make fun of Nickelback, it seems like it might be in bad taste to mock their fans. The line between those two targets of scorn can sometimes be thin, but I’m pretty sure we don’t have to worry too much about “bullying” Kroeger with our jokes.