HATE THEM

All right, guys. Nickelback is terrible. Yes. They are a terrible, terrible band. Uninspired, uncreative and wholly undeserving of their fame. They're so formulaic that you can play their songs side by side and not realize you're listening to two different songs. I can say truthfully that I'll be happy if I never hear another Nickelback song for as long as I live.

I won't defend their musicianship for a second, but I will reluctantly defend their existence in the musical world. They're awful, yes. But is it awful that they exist? I'll hesitantly say that it's not.

For example, remember that not everybody takes music seriously. Such people are hard to find in Berkeley, but the fact is that there's a large contingent that sees music as nothing more than something to fill the silence. These people merely want unchallenging, pleasant-sounding noises to spew forth from their speakers as they do other things. I don't think Nickelback is pleasant sounding, but they do stick to reliable (that is, unoriginal) chord progressions and melodies and keep things simple (bland) enough to attract many casual listeners. They're a band you can listen to and not think about, which is all some people want from music. I tend to view such people as somewhat of an alien species, but they do exist, and we should respect that.

If that's not enough, think about the fact that, without multi-platinum acts like Nickelback, major labels wouldn't have the money to afford taking risks on smaller, less-mainstream acts (any act is less mainstream than Nickelback, but I digress). They may make shitty music, but it's their shitty music, and the people who enjoy it enable us to have all of the lovely but unknown bands that we love.

-Seth Millstein

HATE THEM MORE

My relationship with Nickelback began with "Too Bad" off Silver Side Up. I'm sure you remember it-at the time, it was kind of an awesome song: easy to sing to, edgy enough to please any high-school-freshman's musical tastes. I gradually became a retroactive Nickelback fan. After getting hooked on Silver Side Up, which also included such classics as "How You Remind Me," "Never Again" and what I still believe is actually a really good song ("Good Times Gone"), I bought Curb, their first album (released in 1996) and sort of forced myself to enjoy its pre-sellout, low-fi grittiness in an attempt to be "forward-thinking." Now, I'm not opposed to the sellout. Some bands deserve widespread recognition, and fewer still can keep their musical consistency despite filling monster venues and being featured occasionally on "Behind the Music." Nickelback, however, is not that band.

If I hear one more Chad Kroeger-led ballad, I think I'm going to puke. Especially because, to them, "ballad" signals lyrics like "I like your pants around your feet." How romantic. I'm sure every Nickelback groupie (I hope like hell that there aren't actually any of those people. The man has bleach-blonde hair.) would just drop trou after that line, no questions asked. What has this world come to?

After the release of The Long Road, a friend pointed out to me that they actually recycled "How You Remind Me" and turned it into "Someday" two years later. Really. It's all over the Internets. Just google "Nickelback same song" or something like that and you'll see for yourself. This band, and especially Kroeger himself, went from "Hero" to zero in the time it takes to produce a single album, and yet people are still eating this stuff up with a silver spoon. It's really too bad.

-Stefanie Lee

Tags: NICKELBACK