Once, a customer started to walk away before I could give her her five cents change back to her. I called out, "do you want your nickel back?" She replied "Nobody wants Nickelback".
Nickelback does seem to be that band everyone loves to hate. Though personally, I don't find them to be anywhere near as bad as Maroon 5.
In my experience, they're a band that outwardly you claim to hate and make fun of, but, when alone, you'll listen to Rockstar or How You Remind Me or Photograph (and maybe even sing along with) I feel like Five Finger Death Punch is in the same boat too.
I only ever liked them. I haven't listened to heaps of their songs but I liked "How You Remind Me" since 2001. I liked that kinda alt-rock/college rock like Live, Lifehouse, Vertical Horizon etc I thought "Burn it to the Ground" was meant to be a parody or tongue in cheek when I first heard it, but nope it's just straight up getting fucked up drunk anthem. The other one I like is "When we stand together." I've been listening to different albums from different decades each day so maybe I'll add one of theirs to the list.
I've liked the ones I've heard, but probably nowhere near all of what they've done. I had heard that everyone was supposed to hate them, but hey, that's up to other people.
People like them or neutral about them but people like the running joke about how they suck so society has decided to keep it going.
I've heard a lot worse than Nickelback. I don't hate them. I don't really want to listen to them. They were kind of bland, like Soul Asylum, but @The Wormhole summed it up. And lately I've gone into a lot of stores playing Wilson Phillips. Heaven help me. Some things need to stay in the 90s
Pffft, you clearly don't know me. Savin' Me is the Nickelback song I listen to and sing along with when no one's around.
When How You Remind Me came out is the brief time I actually kind of liked them. Then I listened to the full album and it was god awful. I'd agree to listen to Creed on repeat all day before I agreed to listen to more of Nickelback than that one song. But even when you pay attention to the lyrics of that song, they're stupid as hell. It reaches whine levels only matched by the likes of Staind, it has lines like "Couldn't make it as a poor man stealing", and it's generally incoherently whiningly self destructive. Nickelback is the last radio accessible gasp of the late 90s cringesad movement post grunge had devolved into in its death throes.
Some bands are just way overplayed. Nickelback is one of them. Don't find them particularly distinctive.
Other then briefly confusing Chad Kroeger with that lead singer for the band who did "Whereever You Will Go" in the Enterprise promotions, I could easily recognize a nickelback song. Kroeger has a very distinctive voice.
I remember there was someone else back in the mid 2000s, Hinder, I think, who everyone accused of being a "Nickelback knock-off."
Voices are one thing, but I was thinking more musically. Musically, they don't sound very distinctive.
I think it depends on the song, but I see the point. However, for me, I wrap voices into the music aspect, and it's one thing I'm looking for is a distinct voice.
It does depend on the song. I do think though that better musicians would be better able to differentiate between songs, and I think that's where musicality comes into play. Good musicians are able to use their voices as an instrument, allowing the music to flow with it. Other times, the songs just tends to bleed into each other. I saw one fairly big act a few weeks ago and the music all bled into each other mostly because the singer seemed to be doing the same thing with his voice. Wasn't too crazy about it.
It's perfectly normal to have a band that you don't like, but there are some bands that are subject to a hate bandwagon. Some people do try to establish their own coolness by agreeing with others that this band or that band sucks, even if they otherwise would actually have no real feelings for the band one way or the other. But that sword cuts the other way too--there may be bands that are hailed as the Second Coming, but only because they're currently trending...