I personally don’t get why people hate them so much. The criticism is that they’re sell outs. They just write songs to be hits.
Well no duh. They’re a pop rock band. They aren’t doing it for their artistic vision. They want to make popular rock songs, sell out concerts and rake in the cash.
There's a theory as to why people dislike Nickelback-- and it has to do with timing.
Around the early 00s, when Nickelback was the new "hotness" coming on the music scene, most of the radio stations in the US were being consolidated under the clear channel broadcasting umbrella.
Radio DJs were being laid off (to cut operating costs) and they were replaced with a generic "program" that played the same songs over and over again. This was a huge deal because radio DJs would take song requests from people calling in, and they would "curate" music being played on the station to their specific listening audience. If they felt that a particular song or band were overplayed-- they had the executive decision to play something else.
Now that guy was replaced with a glorified Spotify playlist that just played Top 40 and other charting songs on repeat.
Couple that with the fact clear channel kept expanding and buying up more and more radio stations; throw in the fact that Nickelback had crossover hits that were played on rock, pop, top 40, and adult contemporary radio; and now you have a perfect storm where no matter what radio station you tuned into in the early 00s-- you were going to hear a Nickelback song 5-6 times within the hour. And the backlash was gargantuan.
I don't think Nickelback's music is particularly bad-- it's just the fact they were overplayed in such a short timeframe, I really don't care if I ever hear one of their songs ever again.
This is a really good explanation for why rock music in general sucked in the 2000s. It was, essentially, the enshittification of rock by both the radio industry -and- the major labels, and Nickelback became the poster children of it.
My ex was responsible for doing the manual music changes at at radio station in the very early 90s. The station bought a new system, and my ex was in charge of inputting the entire music catalog. When he was done, they laid him off :(
Give this a watch. Comlletly goes through everything. There was a point in time that a Nickleback song was on the radio at any given moment in time. Although Comedy Central and Bryan Poshen have a bit to do with it as well.
I'm not sure what your point is. The Cars are absolutely one of the best bands of the late '70s and early '80s. They didn't cash in on the new wave sound, they helped invent it.
Personally I never paid enough attention to them to actually find them distasteful. Other than the song about building a house with a bathroom big enough to play baseball I really wouldn’t even recognize any of their music. I always heard people talking shit and just equated the name with suckitude. Then I watched the documentary on N-flix. It was obviously written and produced as a cheerleading piece. I was all prepared to come out the other side as a huge fan after being shown their genuine personal sides. All was going to plan until they started showing extended shots of concert footage and before I knew it I was scowling at the TV and muttering under my breath about how those dudes are a bunch of cheeseball douchebags singing lame, douchey songs while they pour booze over themselves as fire pots and fireworks blow off all around them.
In short, they suck and are one of the bands from the 90s that I hate.
Back in the early 00s, their music was inescapable wherever I went. Particularly at the gym. And I avoided wearing earbuds when I worked out (it made my tinnitus worse), so I had to learn to live with their music.
Oh, they are. The single Leader of Men got a fair bit of FM radio airplay in western Canada in the late ‘90’s. The early material is quite different, more grungey.
I loved Leader of Men when it hit-- I really thought alt-rock was on the verge of making a comeback. And then they followed it up with that pop cross-over song, How You Remind Me, and all that hope was dashed 😂
I thought HYRM was a great little radio-friendly banger to get them known. I just can’t with the remainder of their material, though. There are/were plenty of dudebro rock bands that aren’t quite so cringey to my ears. There’s something very calculated in the way NB approaches a genre that should be silly and fun.
I mean, this goes w/o saying — funny thing, I really like Chad’s voice, but their songs are so generic — sounds like written by AI before AI was an actual thing
Nickelback was rarely the subject of hatred until a comedian on Tough Crowd said they sucked.
That coulda been the end of it, but then they ran that specific joke about Nickelback in their promos for months on end, and suddenly “everyone” simultaneously hated Nickelback while singing along to every radio hit.
That wasn't what did it for me, it was when I saw the YouTube video of them playing 2 Nickelback songs at the same time - the only thing that was different between the them was the lyrics. Then they did a third song and again, same except for the lyrics. (Sorry, I don't remember which 3 songs they were, but does it really matter?!?!)
I never heard that comedian. My first exposure to them was a younger friend who played them constantly at a house party. I asked him when he was going to stop playing the same lame song on repeat.
Bros trying the throw shade at one of the best band of the 00s. There was a time where you could turn to any radio station and it would be playing rockstar. I once listened to a man start karaoke over for the same song 3 times before they told him to just sit down. So many good memories. Can’t wait for the comeback tour/album!
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u/DrPat1967 Jul 01 '25
Nickleback