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• Alain

  February 26, 2010 at 8:48 pm

  You know, a lot of people are quick to hate on Nickelback, but I’ve always been a supporter.
  Here’s why:

  They found tremendous success in the music business once they hammered out a formula that had mass appeal. Yes, haters will come out and say that all their songs sound the same, and sometimes they do. But hey; This is the music business. (Emphasis on business). If you found a surefire way to make millions repeatedly, you’d be all over it too, wouldn’t you? I’m only half kidding.
  But what people often forget is that beyond the radio-friendly, lowest common denominator singles the band releases, there are some very well written, and thoughtful songs on the albums that see no radio time. And lets not forget that before Nickelback found a ridiculous amount of success with “How you remind me”, they were pretty well respected in the Canadian hard-rock scene.

  Perhaps another reason why Nickelback can’t get no respect is that they are victims of their own success. They get way too overplayed. Why is this? Here’s my theory, and it is quite simple. Two words: Can-Con. If you live in Canada, this means the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) mandates that content providers air a minimum of 30% Canadian-made content every hour. Unfortunately, Canadian artists can often lack the mass appeal that American or British artists have. In the radio and television world, it all comes down to ratings. Ratings = dollars, so the higher the ratings, the more money rolls in. These content providers are often more concerned with the bottom line than with promoting a culture of musical diversity, so they just air the same stuff with a broad appeal. Over and over and over again. Until we get sick of it.

  These are just my theories, anyway.

  I give props to the hometown boys. They found a way to amass a huge following, ensure that they’d never have any money problems, and managed to become household names in the process.

  (Reply)
• Diamond

  February 27, 2010 at 10:01 am

  Really appreciate your insight into Nickelback’s contribution – indirectly – to the world of heavy metal. It also brings up the very unfair criticism of Nickelback that they intentionally churn out chart-toppers just to make money. Like that’s easy to do! They also tour the world like Gengis-Kahn-on-a-mission, play four nights a week to sold out arenas for months and months at a time – again, as if that’s easy to do, and all they get is disrespect for it for somehow having “sold out”. As if people really wanted to go to a Metallica show but Nickelback was hogging the arena that night and so people were forced to hear them instead. We have an infinite appetite for music. Nicklelback’s existence does not leave a smaller market for whoever else you like.

  (Reply)
• Diamond

  February 27, 2010 at 7:14 pm

  You’re right, the music outlets are in the business to make money, for sure. But, Can-com aside, I don’t buy the argument (in the USA especially) that there’s either an evil conspiracy on someone’s part to keep Nickelback on the radio/MTV, nor that radio execs are too lazy or unimaginitive to play anything else. My favorite example is sports, let’s say hockey. Why is hockey on TV? Because the TV execs are too lazy to come up with something else? Too unimaginitive to try something like the shot-put invitational? Of course not. Simple supply and demand. It’s simply not true that Nickelback are successful because they get played a lot on the radio – they are on the radio because people want to hear them. They probably also benefitted from being big at the same time as rap and hip-hop, because the nasty nature of rap and hip-hop left radio stations scrambling to find anything else, that wasn’t full of profanity, to play. I find none of the arguments that Nickelback is formulaic to make sense. A formula would make it enormously EASIER for others to replicate – yet they don’t. If it’s so easy to sell over 30 million albums worldwide, playing the same songs based on a “catchy” formula, why haven’t many other talents left them in the dust? What’s the formula? Soft verse, big chorus, repeat, bridge, enormous chorus. There you go – make your millions! ——good discussion, Alan, thanks.

  (Reply)
• Alain

  March 1, 2010 at 9:19 pm

  @Diamond:

  Some of Nickelback’s hits HAVE been somewhat formulaic. Here’s some evidence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2pXfAK8r1k.
  That said, perhaps I shouldn’t have used the term “formulaic” as you’re right, if other bands copied that same formula, why arent there a million Nickelback clones? OH. Wait…
  A lot of bands have tried with varying success to duplicate the general “Nickelback sound” (Specifically, Default and Theory of a Deadman who are incidentally signed to 604 Records, Chad Kroeger’s record label).
  I think these so called “clone bands” have also left a sour note in people’s consciousness because everything all begins to sound the same. And this is certainly attributed to artists developing similar styles of music because that’s what they like, and that’s what they think will move records.
  But as you put it, theres still a ton of people out there who are willing to buy the albums and concert tickets etc.

  I don’t think there’s a “big conspiracy” among label execs to keep Nickelback on the air. I just think that when a band becomes popular, it makes more sense for the content providers to play the hits over and over because of the ratings factor. And in Canada, this becomes even more problematic because Nickelback is much more popular than other talent such as Hawksley Workman and therefore probably amounts to higher ratings. (This is all my personal speculation mind you.) I think that being overplayed becomes a detriment to the artist inevitably because people get sick of their music. I think this is largely what happened to Creed ealy in the 2000s.

  You do make a good point as well about the rap/hip-hop factor too. Nickelback saw their rise to the top of the charts at the same time rap and hip-hop were coming into the mainstream conciousness, so radio stations who catered to the rock and metal loving crowd needed to find some bands to lead the charge for that scene.

  At the end of the day, music all comes down to personal taste. I just find it perhaps a little discouraging that so many people are quick to jump on the “Hey dude, lets hate Nickelback because everyone else does” bandwagon without thinking about why they should – or should not – hate them based on the virtue of their music alone.

  (Reply)

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